Team has potential to surprise in World Cup: Bajwa

LAHORE: Although losing the final of the Challenge Trophy against New Zealand was a great disappointment as Pakistan lost despite executing fine play, the national team still has the potential to cause a big surprise in the upcoming World Cup to be held in India in Feb-March, 2010.

Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Secretary Olympian Asif Bajwa, who returned from Argentina as manager of the Pakistan team, which lost the final 2-4, told Dawn that though there were some gray areas noticed in the performance of the team, the overall display was quite satisfactory as it played the final and gave New Zealand a tough competition.

Pakistan lost the final after conceding two goals in the last five minutes after being tied 2-2 till the 65th minute of play.

The win helped the Kiwis qualify for next year’s Champions Trophy as Pakistan will be missing the world’s toughest hockey competition for the third consecutive time.

“We should have won the tournament because Pakistan were the favourites for the title, but the boys might have lacked due concentration in the dying minutes and paid heavy cost,” Asif said.

“There is more need to improve the mental strength of the boys for high-profile matches and there should be no lack of concentration at any stage,” Asif said.

“But I am sure the team is quite able to spring a surprise in the World Cup as it has the potential to beat any World best team on any given day,” Asif vowed.

He said though the attacking department of the team played well, short-corner defense proved weak as the team conceded eight goals on penalty-corner out of a total of 12 awarded to the rivals.

Asif, however, was satisfied with the conversion rate of Pakistan’s penalty-corner specialist Sohail Abbas.

“Sohail Abbas has a 30 per cent ratio of conversion and that is not bad. Sohail scored in almost every match and he is still our main weapon,” Asif said.

“As Sohail is our main card, ultimately the rival teams have to make a special strategy for him so they work more on him to tackle,” he said.

He said the training camp for the World Cup would start from Jan 5. However, he said, the venue of the camp was yet to be decided.

For the World Cup’s preparations the PHF had deferred the National Championship, which was scheduled from Dec 17.

Defending the decision of postponing the national event, Asif said the boys needed rest after attending long training camps for two international events.

He said it was not possible to exempt the international players from participation in the national championship to attend the training camp, because in that case their departments would have suffered.