By Zakir Hussain SyedI was Ipoh once again for the 20th edition of Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament, the only regularly organised international hockey event in Asia.
After the 19th Azlan Shah Tournament, I had written that this event was losing its appeal because of the participation of second grade teams like Egypt, and also even the stronger teams that did compete used this event as an experimental platform.
Fortunately, the 20th edition was different as it was participated by seven of the top teams in the world ranking. Australia are ranked No.1, Great Britain No.4, Korea No.6, New Zealand No.7, Pakistan No.8, India No.9 and hosts Malaysia No.15.
More importantly, every participating team, except Malaysia, took it as a first step towards London Olympics in 2012.
This was Pakistan’s first international commitment after a gap of nearly 6 months since the Asian Games in November 2010. Pakistan team had also included 4 young players in the national team to blood them for future. I will give a brief review of Pakistan’s matches in this tournament before analysing the overall performance of the team.
Pakistan’s first match was against New Zealand at 4:00 pm which happened to be the hottest period of the day.
Pakistan won this match comfortably by a margin of 4-2. Pakistan were never really tested in this match with Pakistan goals coming in through Rizwan Senior, Haseem Khan, Syed Kashif Shah and Umar Bhutta.
Pakistan’s second game was against highly rated South Korea. This match again was played at 4:00 pm. Until half time it was 1-1 but then Pakistan played very well in the second half scoring 3 goals in the last 12 minutes, a proof of Pakistan’s domination and superiority.
Next game against Great Britain was lost by a margin of one goal with final result being 3-2 in favor of Great Britain. However, Pakistan should have won this game by a margin of at least 3 goals as they completely outclassed Great Britain in the second half.
There was unbelievable missing by all the Pakistan forwards including experienced Rehan Butt. Pakistan played their fourth match against Australia once again at 4:00 pm. This was Pakistan’s worst performance in the tournament as Australia completely dominated this match with a stunning 5-1 victory.
For the first 15 minutes of the match, Pakistan remained confined to their own half and hardly made an attacking move. The Australian forwards were too speedy for Pakistan defense and literally weaved circles around them.
Then came the crunch game against India and once again Pakistan played superbly coming from behind to beat India 3-1.
This match showed Pakistan’s potential as a team and the victory was well merited. Pakistan’s last match against Malaysia was perhaps the easiest of the entire tournament and Pakistan’s victory in this match was never in doubt which though the final victory was only by a single goal.
Pakistan thus qualified on merit for the final of the tournament which they had won thrice in 1999, 2000 and 2003 while India and South Korea, last year’s finalists were left fighting for 5th and 6th place. It just showed how international standings can change so quickly.
To be continued...
(Zakir Hussain Syed is Pakistan’s internationally renowned sports administrator, sports broadcaster and sports analyst)
