My acquaintance with hockey didn’t form until Pakistan hosted a world event of its national game. The world cup of hockey was played in mid-1998 in Utrecht but it failed to attract most of the new generation, perhaps because Pakistan, despite being defending champions, failed to put a decent show. Just when it occurred that hockey would fade away, there came November 1998 and hockey dropped pennies for us as this time they were hosting five international teams for the 20^th edition of the Champions Trophy.

Of all the Pakistan sports, hockey has suffered the most due to various reasons: team’s poor show, lack of stars and security issues to mention a few problems.

However, now that the team is putting some sort of a show in London, the interest, as seen on social media, somehow is back but Pakistan hockey is still a country mile away from what it was in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. In 1998, the team still had the likes of Shahbaz Ahmad alias Senior, Kamran Ashraf, Tahir Zaman, Mansoor Ahmad, but the crux of team was a new comer, who made his international debut the same year (1998), Sohail Abbas. Those blazing and tracer bullet drag-flicks had earned Abbas his reputation as a penalty corner specialist.

Abbas added a new flair and flamboyance in Pakistan sports to such a degree that even those who were not much into hockey were compelled to reach National Hockey Stadium in Lahore as Pakistan marched into the final of the 1998 Champions Trophy to face Netherlands. Pakistan lost 3-1 but the crowded stadium vindicated the interest in hockey. The final was played the same day when Australia was playing an ODI at Peshawar. But the priority of the day was hockey, not cricket.

There is no exaggeration in the notion that for a good part of the 1990s, hockey in Pakistan was followed as fervently as cricket. Right after the 1998 Champions Trophy, Pakistan played in the Bangkok Asian Games and finished third, getting a bronze medal. The interest in hockey did not dwindle as the very next month and year, in January 1999, Pakistan hosted India for a four-match series and then toured India in February for the same number of matches. It was the time when Pakistan’s cricket and hockey teams were in India for bilateral series of their respective games.

In June 1999, 21^st hockey Champions Trophy was taking place along with the cricket World Cup so much so that the last day of both the events was the same, June 20. It saw Australia winning both the events, Cricket World up at Lord’s and Champions Trophy Final at Brisbane – later in the year, Australia won The Rugby World Cup as well. As for Pakistan, they got mauled by the Kangaroos at Lord’s and finished last, at sixth after losing to England, in Brisbane, resulting in their elimination from the next edition of the Champions Trophy from the very first time in their history.

Next year, in 2000 at the Sydney Olympics, Pakistan reached the semi final but failed to grasp any medal. Since 1994, Sydney Olympics remain the only event, including World Cups and Olympics, when Pakistan reached at least a semi final. Hockey was quite for couple of years then. In 2002, Pakistan participated in the World Cup in Kuala Lampur, only to finish fifth in the event.

Later in 2002, when Pakistan played and won a play-off of a bronze medal against India in the Champions Trophy in Cologne it gave fans some respite. The match will be remembered for the arrival of Rehan Butt and how cunningly he converted a long pass into a match-winning goal. In the next edition of the Champions Trophy in 2003, once more Pakistan and India had a third-position play-off. In a group game, India had routed Pakistan by scoring a whopping seven goals, thanks to the astute work of Dhanraj Pillay. But the play-off was reminiscent of the previous year – Pakistan won it with Rehan Butt again proving out to be India’s scourge just two minutes before the end of the game.

It did not end there. The very next year, Pakistan completed a hat-trick of bronze medals in Champions Trophy and beating India in the play-offs. This time they did it in front of their home crowd as Lahore was hosting it in 2004. Since then, Pakistan have not hosted any such event, nor have they won any medal.

The mid-2000s was last when Pakistan in some measure was considered a competitive team. In recent years they have even failed to make into the Champions Trophies, let alone taking the rostrum. They have not won any medal in the Olympics since Barcelona 1992, have not reached a semi final of a World Cup since Sydney 1994.

Now their current display of hockey in the 2012 Olympics has given fans minor hope. The critics have held their fires for a while. If the support shown by fans on social media and Sohail Abbas making it to the Worldwide Twitter trends are any things to go by, it is not hard to realize that hockey craze is still there. Fans still possess the exuberance and frisson of the early 1990s and hopefully the team can match their spirit too.                                                                                                                                       

 Mazher Arshad is a Cricket buff based in Islamabad who considers watching Cricket and giving insights of it as his foremost priority on social media. He tweets @cricket_U

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