The Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament started in 1983 and this year happens to be its 19th convention. The first tournament started of with five teams. This year round, there are seven participating teams in the tournament. The number and names of teams vary but Australia has been the team that has been able to give the steadiest performance in the tournament.
The participating teams this year are namely: Pakistan, India, Australia, Korea, China, Malaysia, and Egypt. According to the FIH ranking, Pakistan has a ranking of eight amongst the world while India sits at number nine. Australia remains the number one ranked team of the tournament as it kicks off in Ipoh on May 6.
The Azlan Shah Hockey tournament this year has proven very controversial for the Pakistani team. Firstly, there were selection committee issues after an 18 member-squad was penned down. Fans were no less than surprised to find out that Pakistani stars Sohail Abbas, Rehan Butt, and Shakeel Abbasi were 'rested'.
Many of the senior players were planning to retire after the World Cup. The Pakistani team showed an extremely dismissal performance at the recently concluded World Cup by finishing at 12th position. While the selectors told that they needed to be rested, the players said that in that case they should not have been called up for the camp and not stopped when they were planning to retire internationally.
There are even lesser senior players in the team now with Zeeshan Ashraf, Akhtar Ali, and Mohammad Waseem booking them out of the tournament. Meanwhile Goalkeeper Salman Akbar probably had similar things in mind.
The Pakistani squad now includes: Aamir Shehzad, Abdul Haseem Khan, Abdul Qayyum, Imran Butt, Imran Shah, Fareed Ahmed, Kahsif Ali (Jr.), Kashif Ali (Sr.), M Imran, M Irfan, M Rashid, M Rizwan, , M Tauseef, M Zubair, Shafqat Rasool, Umar Bhutta, Waqa Shairf, and Zeeshan Ali. Instead of Zeeshan Ashraf, the reigns of captaincy has been granted to Mohammad Imran.
So far, there has been a disappointing performance shown by the Pakistani team at the tournament. The Pakistani team management was claming to beat India with full fury as a revenge for it humiliating 4-1 defeat at the World Cup in India. Nevertheless, the match became an embarrassment for Pakistan as India defeated the team 4-2 today.
The Indian team itself has been out of form, producing below par performances at the World Cup in Delhi. Just yesterday, they could only muster a 1-1 draw against China at in the closing minutes of the game.
The Pakistani team too is not behind in this embarrassing display of failure as they barely escaped defeat at the hands of Malaysia by leveling the score at 3-3 in the closing minutes of the game.
The desire of satisfaction for Pakistani fans across the globe would at least have been fulfilled by a victory against India, but that too has been taken away.
All that remains now is hope that the new Pakistani team filled with youngsters can prove their worth in the future. The seniors along with the team management need to throw their full support in order to train the new teams in a better direction.
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