KARACHI, 18 January 2008 — Almost a quarter of a century after winning the last of their three Olympic hockey gold medals, Pakistan’s prospects in the 2008 Games in Beijing this summer look bleak.
They are currently trailing at No. 6 in the world rankings but cannot even justify that slot after finishing a dismal seventh in the eight-nation Champions Trophy in Kuala Lumpur last December, just ahead of hosts Malaysia.
A thousand different reasons have been cited over the years for Pakistan hockey’s dramatic decline and one of them is the role of the forwards.
In its glory years in the sixties and seventies, Pakistan run roughshod over their rivals, winning the best of the titles almost at will. One big reason for their startlingly excellent winning spree during that era was the fact that they usually had the services of the world’s best strikers.
That started to change alarmingly in the late eighties after the retirement of celebrated striker Hassan Sardar.
In the nineties, Pakistan had the services of talented pivots like Kamran Ashraf and Kashif Jawwad but things were not the same. Pakistan began to mostly rely on the goal-scoring prowess of drag flick ace Sohail Abbas and for the first time in their history a defender was now the national hockey team’s biggest star.
It continued to go from bad to worse for Pakistan after Sohail fell out with the country’s hockey authorities in 2005 and has since played just a few matches for the national team.
“I believe by neglecting our strikers, we committed a big mistake,” Kamran Ashraf, a former Pakistan striker who was the top scorer (eight goals) of the 1994 World Cup in Sydney — Pakistan’s last major hockey crown, told Arab News in an interview.
“We started to rely heavily on short corner goals because Sohail was so good but at the end of the day it only damaged our team’s progress even more,” added Ashraf, who is currently the coach of the national junior team.
Ashraf pointed out that with Sohail on their side, team officials used to ask the forwards to try and get as many penalty corners as possible instead of attempting field goals.
“The emphasis shifted from field goals to earning short corners because our coaches thought it was easier to score through penalty corners,” he stressed.
The strategy to concentrate on earning short corners helped Sohail become the highest goal scorer of all-time in international hockey but according to Kamran it caused a fatal blow to what was one of Pakistan’s strongest point — the center forward.
“We are suffering in international hockey today because there is too much confusion over the concept of having a specialized centre forward,” he said.
“Unless we develop some really good strikers and more importantly schemers to feed them, it would be very difficult for Pakistan to come at par with top teams like Australia, Germany and Holland,” said Ashraf.
Ashraf, who was lucky to have the great Shahbaz Ahmed as the team’s schemer said that Pakistan need some world class playmakers.
With the Olympics less than eight months away, the scenario appears gloomy for Pakistan.
But Ashraf believed there is still hope.
“If you see our pool of junior players, there are some really talented strikers,” he said. “There are some teenagers who have the potential to become the future of our hockey,” he added.
Kamran singled out 19-year-old Haseem Khan, a talented Karachi player, who is making his bones as a centre forward, as a future star.
Haseem comes from an established ‘hockey family’. His uncle Hanif Khan is regarded among the legends of Pakistan hockey. Ashraf also named Inayat, another junior team player, as a bright prospect.
