KARACHI, 19 April 2006 — Pakistan raised their game when it mattered most to score a thrilling 3-2 victory over high-flying England in a crucial Pool A game of the men’s hockey World Cup qualifiers in Changzhou, China, on Monday.
After a series of mediocre displays against lower-ranking teams last week, the Pakistanis gave a display of skillful, attacking hockey to hand England their first defeat in the 12-nation contest. The result helped improve Pakistan’s chances of an automatic World Cup spot via a berth in the semifinals. The teams making the last four stage from the two groups would make the cut for this September’s World Cup while a fifth team would be selected through playoffs.
Pakistan, with a record four World Cup titles under their belt, have been living dangerously in the event with unimpressive wins over Canada and Egypt and a 2-2 draw against Belgium. But the Greenshirts underlined their status as the event’s top team with an improved showing against England. Pakistan had to come from behind following a 20th minute short corner strike from Richard Mantell helped England draw first blood. Pakistan leveled the score just four minutes later with what easily was one of the best goals in this tournament so far. A solo run got Ghazanfar Ali into the far right corner of the field, from where he launched a brilliant, precise pass into the circle for Mudassar Ali Khan who stopped and whacked the ball home in one fluid motion, leaving England goalkeeper James Fair without a chance to react.
Two minutes later, they found the net again, with Rehan Butt deflecting a penalty corner hit near the right post for Pakistan to go 2-1 up.
England attacked persistently in the second session and were rewarded in the 50th minute with a Simon Mantell goal with a great run into the circle, outplaying goalkeeper Salman Akbar and finishing off with a shot along the ground on an open goal.
Pakistan put their foot on the pedal got the winner when skipper Muhammad Saqlain scored after receiving a pass from the backline. Little later, Saqlain went down in an incident in midfield and subsequently had to be stretchered off, which prompted numerous players to run together for heated arguments and a fair amount of pushing and shoving. Two yellow cards were the result, given to James Tindall for the original challenge on Saqlain and Muhammad Shabbir for charging in.
Nerves were now fraying and tempers flaring, and another yellow card soon followed for Mudassar, but no more goals could be scored from either side. Pakistan hung on for a well-deserved win and are now in an excellent position to put themselves in the top two of the group. They just need no more than a draw over Ireland in their last group match to make it without depending on the result of the encounter between England and Belgium.
