Dont judge the book by its cover
Major (retd) Shahbuddin Chaklader
7 Nation under 18 boys tournament just concluded recently in Dhaka. We are runner up.
Sports thinkers believes in Asian hockey we are far behind of teams like India, Pakistan, China and sometimes Oman also.
In the final, against India its a cruel finish, only three seconds remaining and we conceding the goal, on the display board its 5-4 in favour of India.
Why we failed to save these last few seconds, not just these three seconds, but the last couple of minutes we didnt stick to the structures we normally do. Our mind set was for shoot out and if we could hold India to 4-4 goals, its anybodys in shoot out. Here proves Indians vast experience in international games.
They played their normal attacking mood where we not only go a mad defense , excepting one attacker all get inside of the D box , allow Indians to use both the flanks. Its a blunder of sudden change of game style.
Remember Indians players are playing 60 to 80 matches in a year, same to Pakistan but ours hardly playing 20 to 30 matches. They have camps; have also preparation matches, foreign tours, invitation international matches, the players whole yearly so busy that they have option of choosing matches.
Our boys played against the teams with so much of hockey training ,this is an education to us and have introduce as much matches as we can to give opportunity of making our boys of Asian future goliath.
We are adopting 4-3-3 formation in maximum games. Goalkeeper Arafat, captain Roman Sarkar, Sisir, Sabuj, Nayem, Mohsin, Arshad and penalty corner specialist Ashraful dictate that a new hockey threat has all ready born. Ashraful scored 11 goals, hats off to him.
Despite being the most powerful voice in world hockey Pakistan and India didnt oppose the change of hockey surface from grace to artificial turf starting with the 1976 Montreal Olympics games and this surface change impact severely, on natural grace one has to run on his toe but in artificial turf, running is on flat foot and it requires enough strength in the lower portion of the body, field is too fast and physical fitness over shadow the skill and Asian hockey loose the controlling grip on international hockey.
Artificial turf costing high and till 2016 we have only two and both are located at Dhaka. We require at least seven or eight artificial turf. We require support from business community for arranging these white elephant.
This time Asias one of the biggest conglomerates in business The Beximco Group sponsoring the tournament to extend their hands to make a tremendous success of this international tournaments. This is very much needed for the fresh oxygen for our hockey.
Hardly few months back we are sufferings from planning, funding and also nearly crippled for lusting for power.
Ultimately hockey legend and only Bengali, played regularly for the then formidable Pakistan team Abdus Sadeque has to take over as secretary general and hockey circle gets a smooth environment.
Sports ministry must chalk out planning for international games, when seven Nations Tournaments have already in full swing; there was cricket match between Bangladesh and Afghanistan. And hockey failed to gather more spectators because of this cricket match. Hockey once more popular than cricket even in 90s era, now crawling forward to captivate the interest of the people to become spectators of hockey.
Hockey players are not popular like the cricketers or not even beneficiary but the surprised the Nation by the outstanding result. Before the tournaments they are not even in the lime light but they proves and our duty is to make this players our future laurels. Its truly said, Do not judge a book by its cover.
The writer is a former national hockey captain
