The final stages of the Sultan Azlan shah Hockey cup are showing some surprising performances by the underdogs. Firstly, the Asian champions India, defeated the World champions, and now their neighbours have surprised the Australians as well. Although Pakistan did not win the match, they came back after a 3 goal deficit to even things out 5 goals each at the final whistle.
The Pakistan team, fresh from their worst performance at the hockey world cup, came to this tournament with young enthusiastic players. The lack of experience and match practice was a result of two poor performances in the beginning of the cup. They only managed to draw a match against the minnows, Malaysia, and lost 4 goals to 2 against traditional rivals, India.
But as most talented teams do, they adapted to the situation quickly and came back strongly against the Chinese, winning 6 goals to 2, thus making sure that they do have a chance to qualify for the top 4. Their immediate contenders for the position were the hosts themselves who led by 1 point. Pakistan was scheduled to play Australia next, meaning that the odds were against the green shirt to earn that point, but the ex champions had other intentions.
Pakistan started like real underdogs as the Aussies dominated the field like true champions. Two goals were scored in the first twenty minutes of the game, as the Hockeyroos seemed to run over the young green shirts. Pakistan reduced the deficit to one goal as they dodged past the Aussie defence. Australians took the goal as an insult and straight away raised their game to score another goal.
Soon after the game resumed at half time, Australians scored their fourth goal shattering the Pakistani dream to reach the top 4. But Pakistan is famous for its fighting spirit and they proved so as their captain, leading from the front, converted the first penalty corner that came his way. The team still had a mammoth task of scoring three more goals to reduce the deficit and they managed to score 2 of them, but the fighting Aussies replied back to take a 5-3 lead.
The match seemed to end in Australia’s favour as only 9 minutes remained till the final whistle would blow. Pakistan did not panic and used their young energetic legs to raise their game. They scored their 4th goal in the 9th minute through a penalty corner and levelled the match in the last minute to shock the Australian side. Surprisingly, the magic did not just end their as they took the momentum to even create an opportunity to win the match in the dying seconds of the game. Only if there was a little bit of experience attached to his energy, Zubair would not have missed the goal to end Australia’s dominance of World Hockey.
Nevertheless matching the mighty Australians was a feat in its self and Pakistan is to take out a lot of positives from the match, using them in the remaining of the tournament. They would now meet the Egyptians in their 5th match while they would take on the quick Korean side in their last encounter of the league stage. They would, at least be looking to comprehensively beat the Chinese team while at least levelling with the Koreans to qualify for the Top four spot. Looking at their current form, it looks highly probable.
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