We are our own worst enemies

We are our own worst enemies

By Islahuddin

And, so, we have managed a direct entry into the main rounds of Olympics Hockey 2008 by beating Japan in the third-place playoff for a bronze medal at the Asian Games. What once used to be a routine activity has become in these grim times an achievement not just to mention and talk about, but also to celebrate and boast about.

Generally I try to take a realistic view of things and avoid getting bitter about happenings in life. But Pakistan’s recent performance at the Asian Games in Doha has dampened my spirits like nothing that has happened before it. They had the easiest of all the semi-finals that have ever been played by Pakistan in an international competition, and yet they lost the game. It has caused utter frustration and that has left me an uncharacteristically bitter soul.

I discussed last week the rather inexplicable defensive strategy adopted by the team in the match against Japan which rattled whatever momentum it had gained in matches against Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei.

Today, it is time to have an overview of the team’s entire performance at the Games. In doing so, there is hardly any point in taking up a chronological narration because the team’s performance had the same flaws that have let it down so often and so consistently at international events.

The team had as many as nine penalty corners in the semi-final, but failed to convert. Likewise, the forward line had its chances. Actually, the mere fact that Pakistan got that many penalty corners in itself is a proof that the forward line had its chances. But it failed to capitalise on those chances and could score just one goal. Besides, they conceded the equaliser in the dying moments of the game due to tactical failure. The readers would recall without much of an effort that these are exactly the three points that I have often stressed in my writings. I have always advocated an aggressive strategy with the clear intention of winning every game. Offence is the best form of defence, goes the maxim, and I have always promoted this very idea. Somehow those running the show fail to understand that in modern hockey a one-goal lead is the easiest recipe for disaster. The pace at which the modern game is played, any team has to have a two-goal difference at the very minimum to breath easy on the field of play. Pakistani outfits have tended to go on the defensive after taking the lead, and have often paid the price.

There is an irritating sense of deja vu about the late equaliser by China. The national team has often suffered on this count and the lack of physical fitness has a lot to do with this, but unfortunately not much has been done about that either. Tired legs don’t take long in turning into tired minds. And as that happens, the reflexes start slowing down and lead to stupid mistakes which often result into either a goal or a penalty corner. As China took the game into extra time, the team neither had the momentum nor the energy to make a fight of it. The result, as such, was obvious.

The defeat and the bronze medal were causes enough for frustration and disappointment among the followers of the game, but, if you ask me, the worst I felt about the whole sordid episode was when I read in the newspapers certain statements to the effect that the team had met its target of making it to the medals table. That was surely like rubbing salt into the wounds. There was no European outfit there, the team played drawn games against the likes of Malaysia and Japan, got defeated by China, took the bronze by overcoming Japan with a slender margin; and yet the target was ‘achieved’. It can’t get more self-deceptive than this. We surely are our worst enemies.