Over 400 years in the past Shakespeare lamented a world wherein inherent advantage and value have been usually not accepted or given their due. He mentioned, “And proper perfection wrongfully disgraced, and easy fact miscalled simplicity.” At the moment, we typically make the identical mistake of rejecting that which has been made extra simply comprehensible, and we ought all the time to encourage the seek for perfection.
Area hockey is a posh sport. And it has grow to be additional advanced with passing time and alter in guidelines to make it even quicker. The one technique to come to grips with this complexity is to interrupt down the sport into element elements and to deal with them one after the other. In a sequence of articles, that will probably be produced in session with a few of the famend worldwide coaches, I shall attempt to cowl a few of its trendy strategies and techniques of the sport, that may subsequently assist the younger gamers to raise their tapping, receiving, passing, dribbling, and penetrating and taking pictures contained in the circle.
We may even focus on the finer technical factors of every attacking talent, totally different defensive strategies in anticipating the opponent’s transfer and intercepting the passes, making sturdy tackles and creating eliminations to regain possession and arrange counter assaults. We will additionally see easy methods to apply the press, utilizing man-to-man marking and zoning up. We will additionally cowl the important elements of goalkeeping and creating perfections in penalty corners.
This all has come to my thoughts after the fruits of the eleventh version of Asian Champions Trophy 2023, held in India in Radhakrishna hockey stadium in Chennai.
The younger Pakistani crew comprising Captain Umar Bhutta and gamers like Hannan Shahid, Abdullah Ishtiaq, Roman Khan and full again Muhammad Abdullah confirmed indicators of occasional brilliance, however couldn’t produce sustained successful efficiency on account of lack of expertise and worldwide publicity.
Moreover expertise and publicity, a significant distinction between India, Malaysia and Japan and the no 5 crew Pakistan was its teaching and help workers. Indian coach Craig Fulton, Malaysian coach Arul Anthoni and Japanese coach Akira Takahashi have been consistently in contact with their help workers, who have been offering them important details about the techniques and bodily situation of their gamers in addition to the opposition via video and notational evaluation, which was serving to the coach in making well timed substitutions and alter within the sample and the tempo of sport, which proved decisive within the consequence of closely-contested matches.
Pakistan enjoys a wealthy historical past of hockey and no write up on the game might be full with out briefly reviewing its good previous. Pakistan turned a member of FIH in 1948 and was the founding member of Asian Hockey Federation (ASHF) which was shaped in 1958. Pakistan is proud winner of 4 males’s hockey world cups — 1971, 1978, 1982 and 1994. It has three Olympic Golds to its credit score — Rome 1960, Mexico 1968 & Los Angeles 1984. The crew has been to primary place in Asian Video games eight occasions — 1958, 1962, 1970, 1974, ‘78, ‘82, ‘90 and in 2010.
The golden period of Pakistan hockey spanned from 1970 to 1984. Within the 1986 London World Cup, FIH fully shifted discipline hockey to Astro Turf. From there onwards hockey was no extra the sport of stick work and physique dodges however all the strategy in direction of the sport shifted to health and totally different strategies which we will focus on in our later articles.
In 1994 Pakistan received the Champions trophy at house after a niche of 14 years and later defeated Netherlands on penalty shootout in Sydney to raise its final World Cup. Within the 1998 World Cup, Pakistan completed fifth and the identical was the outcome within the 2002 World Cup in Malaysia. By this time towering personalities in PHF like Gen Muhammad Musa, Air Marshal Noor Khan, Nawab Sadiq Hussain Qureshi, Air Marshal Azim Daudpota, Brig Attif, Brig A H Hamidi and Colonel Mudasir Asghar had exited from the nationwide hockey administration scene and have been changed by Olympian Akhtar Rasool, Qasim Zia, Arif Ali Khan Abassi and Tariq Kirmani as Presidents and Khalid Mehmood, Asif Bajwa, Mujahid Rana and Shahbaz senior as secretaries of PHF.
Brig (Retd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar was appointed as President PHF in 2016 and is the present President of the federation flanked by Syed Haider Husain as secretary.
Within the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Pakistan completed eighth on the desk however the worst adopted when the Greenshirts completed 12th and final within the 2010 World Cup in New Delhi. Pakistan hockey was at its worst and gamers like Sohail Abbas, Rehan Butt, Shakeel Abbasi and Saqlain have been approaching the tip of their peaks. In 2012 Pakistan received the Asian Hockey Championship and took the bronze medal in Asian Hockey Championship trophy.
Pakistan hockey badly wanted contemporary legs, competent coaches and a wider pool of younger gamers, however nothing optimistic was within the providing. From 2014 began the worst interval of Pakistan hockey once we did not qualify for the world cup for the primary time. No enquiry was held on the authorities stage to probe into the state of hockey which remains to be our nationwide sport.
Hockey followers in Pakistan are completely dejected. There was hardly any protection of nationwide sport over the last ten years on nationwide TV. PHF miserably did not develop hockey as a model, and the youth misplaced its curiosity within the sport which was as soon as our satisfaction and flag provider within the Olympics.
Brig Arif Sadeeqi (Retd), ex-DG Pakistan Sports activities Board rightly mentioned that nice establishments produce nice people and nice people produce nice establishments. PHF is a real reflection of Brig Arif’s assertion, the place hockey as an establishment has fallen prey to mediocrity in each division.
Whereas I write these traces, a information has struck the headlines stating that Pakistan Sports activities Board (PSB) has suspended the present PHF officers as directed by the involved ministry, to make sure full scrutiny of hockey golf equipment and electoral school on the earliest, beneath the supervision of PSB, an establishment that itself wants transparency and capability constructing in a lot of its skilled issues.
Little doubt Pakistan hockey wants an entire overhaul, and a scientific strategy in its growth. It wants its revival in streets, grounds and training establishments. PHF alone will be unable to bail the hockey out of its current state of affairs. We will attempt to educate the younger hockey lovers concerning the trendy elements of the sport.
In my subsequent three articles or so, I shall be masking the fundamentals of hockey, tackling and interception, objective taking pictures choices, goalkeeping, types of play, breakaways & counterattacks, set performs of contemporary hockey, penalty corners, notational evaluation in hockey and easy methods to obtain peak participant health.
I hope that this honest effort will assist our budding gamers to enhance their sport as a result of the enter can be coming from the perfect worldwide coaches who’re presently engaged within the coaching of prime women and men groups of the world.