The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Sohail's golden phase

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 09, 2004

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Sport - Hockey

Sohail's golden phase

By S.Thyagarajan

CHENNAI, OCT. 8 . Even in a country like Pakistan, where hockey heroes are a legion, Sohail Abbas is unique. The world record that the 27-year-old etched on Friday at Amritsar, to push the Dutch legend, Paul Litjens, out of the pedestal illustrates a golden phase of an eventful career.

"My goals are not mine; they are of the team.'' Sohail remarked before the Olympics in Athens. This statement underscores the character of the man whose firm belief is that the team's outcome mattered more than personal glory. Humility is what makes Sohail different from so many who consciously project their charm and charisma.

What makes Sohail remarkable is that he surprisingly remained the cynosure in a country where the romance of hockey was always represented only by the front-liners. From Khalid Muhammad to Islahuddin, Samiullah and Sheik Shahnaz, to the glorious era of Hassan Sardar, Shahbaz Ahmed and Tahir Zaman, it has always been the forwards in the forefront.

True, there have been outstanding defenders, and penalty corner strikers, like Tanvir Dhar, Manzur-ul-Hassan and Khalid Bashir. But none remained in the limelight as much as Sohail to the point of forcing the nation to look up to him more for results than at the competence of forwards.

It is perhaps in the fitness of things that Sohail should achieve his crowning moment here. His debut was against India in 1998 at Peshawar after bursting on the domestic scene in 1996. "I am learning with each match,'' said the Karachi born, after six years of competitive hockey, the outstanding of which was 2000 when he slammed in as many as 60 goals.

The drag flick

Sohail is fit, adept, stylish, powerful, professional, and above all, ingenuous. It is difficult to pinpoint who (among several claimants) perfected the art of the drag flick, so lethal a weapon that it can devastate any goalkeeper. Contemporary hockey has witnessed a handful, which includes Bram Lomans and Taeke Takema of Holland, Florian Kunz and Bjorn Michel of Germany, Jorge Lombi of Argentina, Yew Woon Koon of South Korea as eminent drag flickers.

Some observers tend to give the benefit of doubt to the wily Argentine as the author of the drag flick that was alien to strikers of the previous era, including Floris Bovelander, who succeeded the Dutch superstars, Paul Litjens and Thies Kruize, both of whom played a lot on natural grass, like Prithipal Singh, India's stalwart of the sixties.

But the fact that Sohail had touched a new milestone in this facet gives him that extra halo. The wristy elegance fashioning the speed of the ball flying at varying trajectories from different angles and the degree of consistency make Sohail the most respected, admired and feared striker.

The career of this mild mannered, soft-spoken Pakistani should not only be measured in terms of statistics at the Olympics (2), World Cups (2) and Asian Games (2) played and the number of goals scored. It represents the era of a player who reached the pinnacle through sheer hard work, dedication and determination to fight odds; like the groin injury three years ago and the humiliation of paying a fine of a 100,000 Pakistani rupees for figuring in German hockey league without a clearance from the federation. The sports fraternity today unhesitatingly acknowledges Sohail as a symbol projecting the élan and effervescence of contemporary hockey. And this shy star deserves every word of approbation that his achievement attracts from different corners of the globe.

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