Poor decisions continue to let Pak hockey down

One more bad decision by the officials of Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has raised many eyebrows. If not honoring the offer to compete in the high-profile Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Cup was a poor decision by all means, accepting the offer to compete against minnows was yet another shortsighted step.

With 17th ranked Japan and 31st ranked Oman the other two teams in the tri-nation event starting today (Wednesday), one wonders what kind of mileage Pakistan would get in flexing their muscles against the low ranked teams.

Definitely it would be a good gain for the teams like Japan and Oman to play comparatively high-ranked Pakistan however it is nothing more than wasting time and money for the Greenshirts.

On the contrary it would have been far better step to send the team to Malaysia to play against teams that stay in pursuit of excellence by taking the game seriously.

Pakistan has officially refused to compete in the yearly event reducing Sultan Azlan Shah Cup to a six-team international tournament with world No 1 Australia leading the field. World No 2 Argentina, India (No 6), England (No 7), Ireland (No 10) and hosts Malaysia (No 12) are also set to make Azlan Shah Cup a dress rehearsal for forthcoming Commonwealth Games.

All the participating teams barring Argentina are using the Azlan Shah Cup as a platform to prepare for the Commonwealth Games to be held from April 4-15. The PHF thus spoiled a golden opportunity to play against the best teams and remove their rusty flaws before all important Commonwealth Games.

The PHF did the same when two years back, the team was invited to play the penultimate Champions Trophy held in London considering former great Air Marshal Nur Khan’s services for the event. Pakistan refused to compete in the Trophy and later in the Junior Asia Cup with the fears that Greenshirts would go on to lose every match.

That fear continues to haunt the PHF even today as yet again the federation ignored the urgency of matter by failing to make the team ready for the 27th edition of the Azlan Shah Cup.

By preferring minnows in tri-nation event in Oman, the federation itself has accepted that it has lost faith in the team and its management.

The PHF incumbents are not new in the office. They are running the federation for the last two and a half years and took over the federation when the team was ranked 6th or 7th. In 27 months time, the ranking has slipped to all time low with no hope in the offing for any better future.

Whenever PHF gets opportunity to play against minnows or to figure in exhibition matches, it looks ready to do that believing that beating low ranked teams would earn them praise from those who know little about the game. Such an attitude has already dealt an unbearable blow to country’s hockey standard.

The only criterion to judge in which direction a particular game is moving is to see the improvement in national team’s performance. People may forget and forgive you for financial irregularities but no one would accept any excuse by the federation if the team continues to perform poorly against the best.

Not being able to play against the leading world teams also shows poor relations of PHF officials with the outer world. Now all the eyes are focused on Greenshirts’ performance in the Commonwealth Games.A non-serious approach would definitely hurt Pakistan’s chances in the Games.