The mix of natural & royal intervention saves India at Sultan Azlan Shah cup
The 19th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup has ended on an unsatisfactory note. India shared the title with South Korea as the final was abandoned just six minutes after it began. Being the best team in the fray, India deserved the title albeit they had to jointly hold the trophy with South Korea.
Heavy rains lashed the venue of the finals where India and South Korea were expected to clash. For the first time in history, two teams in Malaysia lifted the winning trophy. The unfavourable weather conditions resulted in an unexpected ending. India retained the title after winning the tournament for the fifth time and the second Azlan Shah Cup in a row. Earlier, they had won the Sultan Azlan Shah Championship in 1985, 1991, 1995 and 2009.
World Champions Australia finished with a bronze after stunning Malaysia 5-3 on their home turf. The Kangaroos finished the round-robin fixture with a tie on 11 points with Malaysia and South Korea. Both the Kookaburras and the Malaysians missed out on the final due to goal difference.
All the teams, except for Egypt, took the chance to come up with a young squad and this resulted in an exciting tournament. Their matches were full of energy, bringing a lot of joy for the audiences in Ipoh, Malaysia. Even Pakistan went ahead with 12 inexperienced players who decided to rise to the occasion. But the new-look team of Australia failed to show the same dominance as their senior side.
The organization for the event was good, however it all boiled down to the painful and poor quality of umpiring. An important match between Pakistan-South Korea turned chaotic in the dying moments when umpire Warren McCully awarded the Koreans with a controversial penalty stroke.
The green shirts disputed the decision and play was suspended for 15 minutes. As a result, Pakistan’s skipper Mohamed Imran got a red card for arguing with the officials.
The score at the time between the two teams was at 2-2 and either Pakistan or South Korea could have taken a berth for the final with a two-goal victory over the other.
The Koreans successfully converted the stroke and got a lead over the four time World Champions. The same umpire then showed a red card to another Pakistani player Aamir Shahzad. South Korea scored another goal in the dying seconds of the match to make it to the final. Pakistan ended the match with eight players playing on the pitch while Korea had ten.
Later, a furious Pakistani skipper explained the club-level umpiring which was on display during the match. Mohammad Imran said, “The umpiring is the worst I have seen and the decisions were just atrocious.”
Pakistan coach K.M. Junaid said that poor decisions by the umpires influenced the outcome of a match a lot.
“Teams spent a lot of money and time coming here. Having a poor standard of umpiring does no good to the image of a top-level tournament. Even the neutral umpires did not appear neutral at all,” he said.
The Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF), in future, has to ensure that the International Hockey Federation (FIH) single out top-class umpires for the tournament. Malaysia has to foot the bill for the improvement of umpiring in the tournament to resume the high standards of the Azlan Shah Tournament. Otherwise, it will be regarded as a second-rate event for teams across the globe.
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