Thaindian News

Lahore, Oct 3 (ANI): In the wake of the Pakistan hockey team’s dismal performance in recent tournaments including the World Cup, the only weapon left for them in the Commonwealth Games is to play an attacking game, Olympian Shahnaz Sheikh has said.

“In our days, we believed in attack, which also helped us in burning energy of the opponents and stopping them in launching counter-attacks,” the Dawn quoted Sheikh, as saying.

“Now the Europeans, after 40 years, have also learnt the advantages of the attacking game as in the last Champions Trophy a total of 104 goals were scored, out of which 64 came through field attempts and the remaining 40 on penalty-corners and penalty-strokes,” he added.

However, he rued that “nowadays Pakistan are playing defensive game,” adding that he did not think Pakistan’s Dutch coach Michel Van Den Heuvel “will change this trend.”

“In fact, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has not learnt any lessons from the World Cup debacle, in which the national team hit the rock-bottom,” Sheikh noted.

He also claimed the PHF had hired the services of Heuvel just to save its skin from the government and critics, so that it could pass all the blame on the players after losing at the Commonwealth Games. (ANI)