Comment: Hockey’s revival continues with new format

Revival of hockey in Pakistan

KARACHI: A few months ago, Pakistan’s national sport was dying a slow, painful and an almost inevitable death. Now, a ray of hope shines through the gloom as first country and now clubs catch the nation’s eye with impressive performances.

In the recently concluded 61^st PSO National Hockey Championship in Sialkot, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) organised an intense competition between teams and departments.

Instead of two stages in the championship – the Tray Hockey Championship and the National Hockey Champion – all departmental and regional sides were pitted against each other in one grand winner-takes-all competition.

The change came about due to International Hockley Federation (FIH) instructions of including a quarter-final round in the domestic competition.

Earlier, the bottom regional and departmental sides used to compete in the Tray Championship, from where the top five teams advanced into the National Hockey Championship, where they locked horns with the five teams who had topped the previous year’s championship.

The 10 teams are then divided into two groups of five teams each and the top two from either qualify for the semi-finals.

Needing to accommodate a quarter-final stage, the PHF included all 19 sides – five regions and 14 departments – in one national championship in a total of four pools; three with five teams apiece and one with four.

This gave the minnows more of a chance to cause an upset while also keeping the giants on their toes, with rookie youngsters taking on seasoned internationals.

Of the five regional sides, Punjab was the only one to make it into the quarter-finals with three wins in four group matches. Islamabad, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan failed to win any of their matches, with the latter two scoring only one goal apiece in their group matches.

One of the main reasons for this was that the Punjab side had departmental players from the province, while the other regional teams only had club players who had little to no experience of playing at this level. The bottom regional sides don’t have regular players on their roster and just make the sides for the tournament.

Champions PIA were led by Imanullah, who had been a part of the 2006 World Cup and Asian Games team. The team that scored 46 goals in seven matches and conceded only seven boasted the likes of Shafqat Rasool, Muhammad Irfan, Ammad Butt and goalkeeper Imran Butt; all part of the national team that recently won silver in the Champions Trophy. Full-back Kashif Ali was the top scorer with nine goals.

PIA remained unbeaten throughout the tournament but had to rely on penalty shoot-outs in all three knockout matches.

Meanwhile, NBP had six international players – Muhammad Dilber, Muhammad Touseeq, Amjad Ali, Ali Shan, Kashif Shah and Rizwan Junior – but were unable to make into the final as they lost in the semi-finals to PIA.

PQA and Customs were two of the high-profile casualties of the new format as they were expected to at least make it into the quarter-finals but failed to do so.

In the previous format, the selectors showed little interest in the first round and it was only the second round that was observed by officials, selectors and coaches.

The new format has also increased the pool of players that the coach and selectors can pick for the national side.

This tournament was the first out of 18 domestic competitions proposed by the PHF. The next competition is being organised by the Pakistan Army, which will be played at the Army Hockey Stadium in Rawalpindi from January 21.

The national side’s next big assignment – Olympic qualification – is five months away and with little to no international hockey in the meantime, these competitions may well be the difference between qualification and otherwise.

 
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