Lahore match drawn but World XI clinch hockey series

LAHORE: The two-match Test rubber between Pakistan and World XI finished in favour of the visiting team 1-0 after the second match of the series ended in a three-all draw here at the National Hockey Stadium on Sunday.

The World XI by winning the first match of the series 5-1 at Karachi on January 19 won the two-match series 1-0.

Playing in front of a moderate crowd, both the teams played their guts out but finished even with three goals each.

Fifth minute of the third quarter followed by the second goal in the sixth and third in 14th minutes of the final quarter through, Ghazanfar Ali, Adeel Latif and Moin Shakeel respectively while equalizer coming from World XI’s Roddick, Netherland’s Rob Reckers and Hidde Turkstra.

The World XI took the lead just before half time which was leveled by Pakistan in the third quarter, in which three goals were scored. Pakistan scored two and one by the World XI. Later in the final quarter both the teams came up with one goal each.

Both the team got two goals each trough field moves and one with a short corner conversion. Pakistan got fibe penalty corners and utlised its energies on just one while the World XL converted one PC from among the two it got.

Teams: Pakistan: Waqar Younis, Adil Rao, Rizwan Ali, Rehan Butt, Moin Shakil, Adeel Latif, Junaid Manzoor, Shahzeb Khan, Ghazanfar Ali, Afraz Hakeem, Umair Sattar, Naved Alam, Adil Rao, Amjad Ali, Owais Arshad, Rana Waheed, Ahmed Nadeem, M Illiyas, Waqar Ali, Zakiullah and Ibrahim.

The World-XI has players from the Olympic Champions Argentina, World Champions Australia, European Champions Netherland’s Rob Reckers and Philip Muelenbroek, Germany’s Benjamin Wess; Argentines are young members of their current national team. Australian Grant Schubert has gold medals from all the big events: Olympics, World Cup and Commonwealth Games. Three Dutch players have Olympic as well as European Championship medals.

The 19-year-old Hidde Turkstra took part in the 2016 Olympics. Likewise, two Spaniards have Olympic silver and European gold in their trophy cabinet.

Phil Burrows is New Zealand’s all-time top field goal scorer. Two star players from China will add Asian flavor. Legendary Pakistani drag flicker Sohail Abbas will also play for the World XI.