Daily Times

KARACHI: Terming Pakistan’s performance in the recently concluded four-nation international hockey festival in Melbourne as “pathetic”, former hockey Olympians Samiullah and Shahnaz Shaiekh have demanded an immediate inquiry into the shameful result. “The greenshirts have failed to rise in the last two years and have virtually put the heads of country’s former hockey stalwarts down,” Samiullah said on Tuesday. The iconic left-winger of yore urged the Ministry of the Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) to initiate a probe into the Melbourne debacle forthwith as it brought disgrace to the nation. Pakistan finished at bottom in the quadrangular event in the Australian city losing all the four games including the playoff for the third position. Pakistan suffered a 1-9 drubbing from Australia – green-shirts’ worst-ever loss in international games – followed by a 1-3 loss to minnows Japan, 2-3 to New Zealand and again 1-2 to Japan in the third-place match. “The Melbourne defeats, particularly, twice to Japan, indicate that the current team have no ability to fight back,” lamented Samiullah.

Former Olympian Shahnaz said there was no need to participate in the Melbourne event. “It was just waste of funds. The tournament has no importance or value.” Shahnaz said the players had no required training. “Losing to minnows Japan was heartbreaking,” he maintained.

Samiullah, who is known as ‘flying horse’ for his superb hockey skills, reckoned the situation for Pakistan hockey was alarming and added that the incumbent hierarchy had failed to deliver the goods during the last two years. “Since assuming the role in August 2015 as PHF president Brig (r) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar and secretary Shahbaz Ahmed have miserably failed to solve employment problem of players and the base is shrinking,” he remarked.

Taking current performance of the team and the PHF’s lack of vision into consideration, Samiullah said, “I see no light at the end of tunnel”. He said it’s time to focus on under-19 players whose fitness level he said will be much higher then the present lot. “The corruption charges levelled by the secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Hockey Association Zahir Shah against the PHF high-ups need to be probed,” Samiullah said when asked to comment on KP official’s statement to the media the other day. He also demanded of the government to probe alleged embezzlement of PHF funds by Qasim Zia, Akhtar Rasool, Asif Bajwa and Rana Mujahid.

Published in Daily Times, November 15^th 2017.