Hockey challenge

For Pakistan hockey fans what happened in the Malaysian city of Kuantan last week was disappointing, to say the least. The green-shirts went there as defending champions of the Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament. Despite Pakistan’s low international rankings, expectations were high as the two-time champions had a near perfect track record in the brief history of the event, having played in all three of the previous finals. But in Kuantan, Pakistan flirted with disaster and almost didn’t make it to the last four after losing to hosts Malaysia and India. But a much-needed win against higher-ranked Korea took them to the semis where Pakistan managed to tame spirited Malaysia in a shootout to set a mouth-watering finale against old rivals India. Once again, hopes were high back home where many preferred to watch the final instead of the ongoing third cricket Test between Pakistan and the West Indies. But for the second time in the tournament their team failed to rise to the occasion. Though disappointing, the twin losses against India didn’t come as a surprise for hockey aficionados. In recent years, while Pakistan have failed to lift their team the Indians have improved by leaps and bounds. The hockey players on the other side of the border have been training the under the winds of Dutch master coach Roelant Oltmans, who almost a decade ago was at the helm of the Pakistani team. At No 6, India are currently the top-ranked Asian team in international hockey rankings way ahead of Pakistan, who are languishing at 13th place. Even the Koreans are ranked higher at No 11. Pakistan needed to punch above their weight in their bid to defend the coveted Asian crown, something that they failed to do.

What happened in Kuantan should serve as an eye-opener, considering that a series of more challenging and far more important assignments are facing Pakistan in the near future. They have to feature in the qualifying rounds for the World Cup and later the Olympic Qualifiers for Tokyo 2020. Pakistan, former world and Olympic champions, failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and the Rio Games held earlier this year. Those were among the most shocking episodes in the history of Pakistan hockey and all out efforts are needed to make sure that such failures won’t happen again. Pakistan’s players have shown potential by reaching the Asian Champions Trophy final but in the meantime their multiple weaknesses were also aptly underlined especially in the defeats against India and Malaysia. The players lack the sort of fitness required at the highest level while the performance of our coaches was also questionable. These are the areas we will have to focus otherwise disappointment and heartbreaks will continue to stalk our national sport.