What Hockey?

SEPTEMBER 2002 - What is one to do with the Pakistan hockey team? Of course quite a few will simply turn around and ask, what hockey team? As far as most people are concerned, all we have is a number of officials accompanied by a bunch of people in funny looking clothes who claim they play a game called hockey. That claim is now very much in question because critics believe that merely holding a long stick with a curve at one end and running hither and thither may earn you a place in a lunatic asylum, but a place in the national side, is stretching it a bit much.

Of course there was a time when we played hockey like nobody else could play it. Not only us, but across the border – though there were times before there were borders when magicians disguised as hockey players carved impossible goals out of nothing and created magic on the fields from here to the other end of the hockey playing world. There were people in those days who could not believe that a hockey ball could simply stick to a piece of wood without any aid and there were times when the hockey sticks were examined to see if indeed adhesives were being applied to achieve the stunning runs. But then those were other times and those players were other beings and those officials were other types. India and afterwards Pakistan were feared when they ran onto hockey fields anywhere in the world. They pulverized the best sides in the world, overcame impossible odds and became legends in their own lifetimes. Then somewhere along the line, the slump set in – gradually at first and then an avalanche that swept all aside. One after another, the legends fell and their replacements were mere mortals who neither had the class nor the talent or the drive to turn up their considerable latent talent into winning ways. There were occasional flashes of brilliance and the rest of the time, there was only the darkness of defeat. In fact the public became so used to defeats that the odd victory didn’t sit well with them leaving them wondering if this was going to be followed by a soul crushing annihilation. Most of the time their fears were not unfounded as we quickly mastered the art of turning victories into defeats and allowing rabbits to become tigers. Every side in the world, including the babes of hockey, walked in and then simply walked out leaving us in a heap. The Indians were faring no better and their quality and brand of hockey was quickly adapted by others who didn’t know one end of a stick from another earlier but were now teaching the masters a trick or two.

Pakistan’s wipe out in Manchester earlier in August at the Commonwealth Games by lowly New Zealand in the semi finals is the latest humiliation that we have to endure. It was a whitewash – since the Kiwis were drubbing us, or you can call it a blackwash since it was the Pakis who were getting drubbed, but a score when mercifully the final whistle was blown of 7-1 is not a cause for reflection but a cause for war. It was Charlie Brown that wonderfully witty pop philosopher who said, ‘It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, as long as you win’ but even if it does not matter what kind of margin is 7-1? Consider the embarrassing fact that New Zealand had played 27 matches before this versus Pakistan, of which Pakistan had won 24 while three others were drawn. It wasn’t that the Kiwis turned up fired by a celestial light that gave them supernatural powers – it was simply that the lethargic, lazy, talent-less Pakistanis were taken to the cleaners by a side that was so ordinary by any known standards. It wasn’t the margin really although 7-1 is a walkover with hobnail boots on but the fact that the Kiwis had scored twice inside of the first three minutes. What had the Pakistanis drunk? Lassi? Valium laced cokes? Too much food? Too little sleep the previous night? The imagination goes boogie-woogie. What can assault a group of young punks – and some much over the hill types, from being unable to even block a team not exactly famous for its prowess on the hockey field? As the goals were raining, the management – well that would be an undeserved compliment to call that rag tag assembly of junket riders as management, decided to change their goalkeeper. Now that is the kind of solution only the army brass can kick up. It reminds me of a former Chairman of the Cricket Board, another general – yes we have no shortage of them, who watched spin wizard Abdul Qadir bowling in the nets at Gaddafi Stadium Lahore and urged a bewildered Qadir to bowl faster and faster. An aide then informed the general that Qadir was a leg spinner and was not expected to bowl like a fast bowler – the distinction was lost on the general however.

The goalkeeper change, a visionary and strategically brilliant ploy that took place within the first nine minutes (the New Zealanders had already missed netting their third goal) led to five more goals as the Kiwis carved up the hapless Pakis. Had the match gone a further ten minutes it is quite likely the Kiwis would have scored another seven goals. The strategists who are, as is usually said here, at the helm of affairs of Pakistan hockey (or whatever is left of the carcass) consist of a general, two brigadiers and one colonel or perhaps it is one brigadier and two colonels. Between these three geniuses – perhaps genii is a better word, have reduced the national team to a farce but hold it, you cannot criticize them or the team because they are playing another tournament and will be unduly disturbed. This is brilliant. What are we supposed to do? Clap our hands? Stand on our heads? Walk on our index fingers? Sing national songs? Plaster our big mouths? The apologists who are running riot with hockey are silent on such trivial issues. Of course no heads will roll, can roll. If the very top brass started asking for proper accountability – not the tepid and diluted variety that is grown here, it would have to sack its own and that is a very big no, no, because when the chips are down – and they are almost always down, you hang in there together. As all of us know who are not wearing ten-ton boots, only civilians can make mistakes. The army – it doesn’t even know the spelling of that word (we must talk about that sometime). The decline in hockey is not just confined to that game with whose glorious history our only link is fading memories of other days. Of squash, the less said the better. Our mango squash is far superior to what we once knew as the game that we owned. Our football team ranks after Mongolia which is a revelation to me since before this awe-inspiring achievement by our footballers, one didn’t know the Mongols were into football. Obviously Chengez Khan was a right half when we thought he was a barbarian. All Pakistani athletes would be beaten to the finish line by the laziest tortoises in the world and as for the Pakistan cricket team – just remember they are hockey players in different coloured kits. Almost everything we have is run by the armed forces – from generals to captains and perhaps even lower. Can they simply get away with murder each time? Well of course they can. They are not civilians, remember? As for the hockey team, why not re hire them as ice cream salesmen on bicycles? They might manage that without making fools of themselves, though I have my doubts on that score.