Lamenting Pakistan's disgraceful performance at the mega event where the team finished at the bottom, Shahnaz said that it could mainly be attributed to the defensive match plan design of the team management.
In his report that he presented at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Thursday when the former hockey legends met up again to discuss their further strategy at the passing of the deadline given to Qasim Zia to sack his Secretary Asif Bajwa, Shahnaz said “The mega event was not taken seriously with the team training being carried out on drills alone.”
He pointed out “But the team's temperament and endurance can only be built on match practice.”
Speaking about the faults seen in the way Pakistan played at the World Cup and before that as well, he said “I have told them [team management] so many times to refrain from playing defensive hockey. You pretty much lose the match the moment you play defensively. It is also demoralising for the players. That's what happened to Sohail Abbas, Rehan Butt and Zeeshan. Also taking your first penalty-corner after 35 minutes means that a player like Sohail has lost his energy by then. Another problem was our goalkeeping. We won the 1994 World Cup due to our goalkeeping and here the substitute goalkeeper, Nasir Ahmad, wasn't even tried after the regular one, Salman Akbar, failed miserably.
“Pakistan has won 20 gold, 14 silver and 13 bronze medals in hockey up until now but our decline started in 2000 when European hockey introduced new rules to suit their playing style,” he said. “Now we have buried our own system in modern hockey,” he added.
The former Olympian wondered how the PHF remained optimistic about a miracle in the World Cup when the national team's performance remains inconsistent even in B/C-grade tournaments.
Giving further causes for the team's debacle in the mega event, his report states “The team's composition of senior and junior players saw most of the younger players being assigned the duty of providing defensive coverage to the older players. Then two forwards playing with the team for the last two or three years were also dropped for the World Cup. The decision of playing the aging Waseem as centre-half failed to deliver, too.”
Rolling substitution was also seen as a major problem. “The management on the bench was mostly shouting in rage rather than design a timely substitution for the aging players. Subsequently most of the goals were conceded in the dying moments of the matches.”
Shahnaz also observed that the handling of the ball was very poor in the circle be it during attack or defence. “Most of the goals against Pakistan were scored on counter attacks by the opponents showing a physical fitness problem. Required strength/endurance and circuit training was not planned during training camp,” he said.
Other faults in Pakistan's way of playing at the mega event pointed out by the former Olympian can be summed up as follows “Bad ball watching, open spaces in Pakistan's defence, individual play, weakness in taking and defending penalty-corners.”
Shahnaz has also made some valuable suggestions for the betterment of Pakistan Hockey. He has demanded restructuring and decentralizing of the PHF along with finding the right man to carry the PHF slogan.
He also called for quality of players in the pool to be enhanced, forming a coaching committee and coaching manual, selection of team management through advertisements and interviews, establishing a committee of experts to study various styles and systems for technical/tactical support to the teams and the creating of a post of analyst who can advise the team management on tactical manoeuvring during a match or tournament.
The detailed report has already been forwarded to Federal Minister for Sports Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, the PHF president and the Senate Standing Committee on Sports.
Meanwhile the list of hockey legends forming the pressure group to convince the PHF President Qasim Zia to oust his Secretary Asif Bajwa grew to 98 as former Olympian goalkeeper Qamar Zia disclosed on Thursday.
The meeting, organised by the KPC Sports Committee, also saw Pakistan's junior hockey team coach resigning from the post after saying that he wished to part ways with the PHF like his colleague Shahbaz Ahmed Senior had done a few days ago.
Olympians Islahuddin Siddiqui, Samiullah, Shahbaz Sr, Ayaz Mahmood, Rashid-ul-Hasan, Akhtar-ul-Islam, Qamar Ibrahim, Moinuddin, Saeed Khan and Mansoor Ahmed along with a huge number of other international players addressed the gathering to voice their grievances with the workings of current PHF set-up.
The Olympians were due to see the sports minister late Thursday night after he specially flew in from Islamabad to meet with them.
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