Shahbaz, Zaman axed from Pak squad

PHF chief Akhtar Rasool, who presided over the meeting, was himself subject to criticism as Islahuddin, manager at Utrecht blamed him for Pakistan’s poor show and demanded his resignation.

Shahbaz (Jr), Rahim Khan and Naveed Alam have also been dropped and the committee has finalised a list of 34 players, mostly promising juniors, with a view to build up a strong side for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Teams for the coming Commonwealth Games, Champions Trophy and Bangkok Asian Games will also be picked from the short-listed players, PHF announced.

Thoughselection committee chairman, Zafarullah Zamali, could not attend the meeting, his approval was obtained over phone. Rasool then discussed the selection with the other two selectors, Tariq Aziz and former international Hanif Khan and the newly-appointed team manager Zakauddin.

Justifying the axing of top stars, PHF secretary Mudassar Asghar said: “Look at the performance of these stars in the World Cup where they failed miserably and team finished a poor fifth. The decision to drop them was also to build a younger team.”

A selection committee member was also quoted by the media as saying it was a “wise decision”, to save the future of Pakistan hockey and put it back on the road to progress.

“It will take time but you cannot depend on those players who are past their prime in the game,” Asghar said. Incidentally, Shahbaz (Sr) was brought back into the team after a two-year exile just before Pakistan played a eight-match home-and-away Test series against India early this year.

He was instrumentalin Pakistan winning the series 3-2.

Meanwhile Ayaz Mahmood, who had been sacked as national coach along with Islahuddin after the Utrecht debacle, has demanded the resignation of Rasool charging that he was equally responsible for the poor show.

A leading newspaper quoted Mahmood as saying: “The President of the PHF along with the selection committee should step down, as they are responsible for the national team’s dismal performance at the World Cup.

“If the manager and coach could be indicted for the poor performance, then the PHF president should also quit as the team was chosen by him and the selection committee,” he said.

Squarely blaming Rasool for the selection of ageing players he said, “I literally begged Akhtar Rasool not to induct old hands like Shahbaz (Sr) and Tahir Zaman, but it was all in vain as he turned a deaf ear.

Frequent changing of the team manager and coach was one of the reasons behind the continuous decline of Pakistan hockey, Mahmood said, and criticised PHF’s decisionto change the manager and coach after every defeat, especially when “players are not picked on manager and coach’s recommendation.”

Mahmood said now that the Federation has entrusted the job of manager to Zakauddin and that of coach to Shahnaz Sheikh, they should be given a long enough tenure with written agreement to manage the team till the 2000 Olympics.