Former Pakistan greats slam team over failure to qualify for

The Pakistan men’s hockey team’s chief coach Shahnaz Sheikh on Saturday said he would not exclusively accept the blame for his side’s poor performance at the hockey World League (HWL) Semi-Final, blaming lack of facilities for their failure to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Pakistan, however, will find themselves under pressure given the fact that they scraped to a 2-1 win over Poland, and got hammered 6-1 by Australia. After this defeat, national team remained at 8th position in the tournament.

If they finish in the top three in Antwerp, the highest ranked fourth-place team from both semi-final events will clinch a Rio 2016 berth.

“We started well and dominated early but the conditions meant we couldn’t keep up the intensity and didn’t take the game away from them which made it tight”.

Pakistan had never previously failed to qualify for the Olympics and they had chances with Muhammad Dilber forcing a fine save out of Harte in the opening quarter, the netminder reacting swiftly to steer a deflection past the post.

Sothern hadn’t been used too often from set pieces to date in the series and, when he stepped up, the Pakistan defence didn’t know what to expect. He converted a short corner with a blistering shot in the 46th minute. Nearly every prominent hockey player has been involved in the affairs of the sport during the last two decades but none have succeeded in bringing back Pakistan’s heydays from 1960 to 1994.

“This is a dark day for Pakistan”, said player Rashid Mehmood as he left the pitch with his head bowed down. “This is our national team and we can’t leave it just like that”, Imran told The Express Tribune.

“This is a disaster for Pakistan hockey”, said Ishtiaq Khan, a shopkeeper in Karachi.

“I will not say that it is shameful for PHF president Akhtar Rasool or his secretary Rana Mujahid”. These are the sort of officials who have played the lead role in our hockey’s downfall.