Just like the lonely child in a school playground, that one no one wants to play with, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) stands alone... at a little distance from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) which is still not quite as astray.

The PCB doesn`t have a dearth of talent like the PHF. Not many youngsters are interested in playing the national sport these days. And why should they be blamed for it when cricket has so much more to offer than hockey. That was one of the many challenges ahead of the PHF`s new President Qasim Zia when he took over from Mir Zafarullah Jamali in October. It wasn`t the most desirable time to take over as Pakistan hockey chief after reigning supreme for so many years had reached its lowest-ever world ranking. That was also why just about everyone in the PHF -- from president to media manager -- had resigned. And Qasim Zia was brought in by popular demand.

Now they are waiting for him to pull off a miracle and revive hockey in Pakistan. The team Qasim chose to work beside him in the shape of selectors, team management, etc., are all Olympians or international players. They have all played on the Astroturf and have an idea of the demands of modern hockey. But getting able people to run affairs was only a small part of the problem. What would the federation do without players? The PHF`s biggest challenge in reviving hockey in the country is to find players willing to play the game. But why should they do  that, with no glamour or incentives?

So the PHF is setting up academies and starting school hockey and club hockey while offering various incentives. Their main focus is on junior players who, after all, would be promoted to the senior team. That is also why they announced the team management for the juniors before worrying about the seniors, who anyway don`t have many tournaments to play. But the juniors will be playing the Junior World Cup in June 2009 before which they need plenty of practice.

That was why the junior hockey home Test series with India was planned. To bring back glamour to the sport, it was decided that all matches, domestic or international, would be televised. Singer Waris Baig was pulled in to sing a special tournament song. The stadiums staging the five Test matches  got fresh coats of paint.

Meanwhile, a meeting between the national cricket team and the junior hockey team was also arranged just to inspire the colts. The cricket team`s new coach Intikhab Alam took the time out to speak to them. Everything was settled, with the first match scheduled for Nov 11 at the Hockey Club of Pakistan (HCP), which was hosting an international event after four years, when on the eve of the first match rumours began to float that the Indians weren`t coming. The press conference arranged at the HCP by the Karachi Hockey Association (KHA) was still on though. A very curious media gathered there that evening but the PHF`s top brass was missing from the scene. That was when a few journalists, in their frustration, staged a walkout.

But President Qasim Zia and Secretary Asif Bajwa, along with chief selector Hasan Sardar showed up, though a little later. They honestly addressed the media telling them that they didn`t know what to say at the press conference now that the Indian government had stopped their junior team from coming to Pakistan just before they were going to cross into Lahore through the Wagah Border. The only thing they could do then was step on to the field themselves to play in place of the Indian team. Hence even a junior hockey team refused to come to play in Pakistan because of security concerns. But it was unethical of them to cancel at the last moment.

The PHF planned two festival matches - one in Karachi and the other in Lahore -- in place of the cancelled event. The Karachi match, won by the juniors 9-4, showed a lot of goodwill. It followed a musical concert where popular singers like Shahzad Roy, Salim Javed and Waris Baig entertained the crowd. Qasim Zia led from the front when he scored two of the goals. Hasan Sardar and Irfan Sr scored one each, Islahuddin Siddiqui did exactly what he had promised to do when resigning from the chief selector`s post just a couple of months back - be available whenever his country needed him. The overweight Akhtar Rasool too played for a few minutes in each half. It was a memorable encounter of the past and the future where fathers faced their sons (Akhtar Rasool`s son Hasan Akhtar and Hanif Khan`s son Azlan Khan were also playing).

While the match was being played in Karachi, there was a bomb blast in Peshawar outside the Qayum Stadium where the Inter-Provincial Youth Games were underway. Then at the other festival match played in Lahore on Nov 22, fire crackers exploded in the vicinity of the National Hockey Stadium. Though the hockey matches were obviously not the target, it wasn`t good for the sport, especially so when the PHF president and secretary were heading to Los Angeles for the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Congress Meeting with the primary aim of convincing the Federation and its 128 members that Pakistan was safe for holding international tournaments.

If the figures being quoted are to be believed, the PHF with the PM`s Rs100 million grant in addition to Punjab`s Rs50 million and Sindh`s 10 million, is much richer and can actually raise its annual spending budget to the intended Rs375 million. But on what will they spend the money when there are no tournaments to play? In their panic to do something good for hockey here, which is being expected of them from the time they took over, the PHF`s top brass was rather hasty in saying that they were even willing to play on neutral venues. But Qasim Zia justified by saying “Well, what else can we do when no team is willing to come here?”

The changes that took place after Qasim Zia`s taking over include several positive things. The choice of selectors, team mangers and coaches for both the senior and j unior teams is excellent; bringing in M.H. Atif as advisor is not bad; reviving hockey teams in three banks (Allied Bank, United Bank and MCB Bank) and Pakistan Customs to help talented players find jobs deserves credit; allowing the talented Pakistani players playing in foreign leagues to come back and play for their country is praiseworthy; and actually following up on their initial plan of training children in hockey at the school level by bringing in the Dutch hockey consultant Wouter Tazelaar to study the environment here seems hopeful.

Another thing that they have done is make district associations work for hockey in their area. Here, I can only speak about the Karachi Hockey Association (KHA), the PHF`s biggest unit, as I have been covering hockey only from Karachi, when I say that they really need to pull up their socks. Just last week they called a press conference two days ahead of the NBP Junior Hockey Tournament only to inform that they still didn`t know how many teams were playing in the tournament. This was followed by a request to the media not to print or show anything negative about them. Earlier at the first festival hockey match, there was no announcement, leave alone a running commentary on the ground which left everyone wondering who was doing what. This scribe could only enjoy the match later while watching the recording on TV. When asked why there wasn`t any announcement or commentary, one of the local officials pointed towards the compere of the music concert saying that it was her fault as she didn`t understand hockey and wasn`t doing the needful. They shouldn`t try our patience.