DNA
WARSAW: Extremely poor umpiring, both on field and video and lackluster performance from Pakistani vice captain Abu Bakar, Goalkeeper Abdullah mainly contributed towards Pakistani defeat against New Zealand in the Nations cup hockey semi final. Pakistan will now play against South Africa for the bronze medal.
New Zealand scored early two goals thus putting pressure on Pakistan. The second goal as deliberately conceded by Abu Bakar whose poor clearance provided the NZ team to carry out a counter attack and score a goal.
Pakistan got a number of penalty corners however Abu Bakar again failed to convert them into goals. There are serious question marks on the fitness of Abu Bakar who got a knee injury during camp in Islamabad. Due to his injury he even did not take party in many practice sessions.
Goalkeeper Abdullah has also been a total disappointment. During the entire tournament he failed to put up a world class performance. Despite his average performance the reserve goalkeeper Munib was hardly tired in the tournament.
Captain Ammad Butt played well. Hannan and Rana Waheed however could not live up the expectations in the match against New Zealand, though; the only goal was scored with their combined efforts.
The standard of umpiring remained quite disappointing in the tournament. Especially the video umpiring standard was not up to the mark. In the semi final at the dying moments of the match Pakistan rightly claimed a penalty corner however the on field umpire disallowed their claim. True, Pakistan had lost their referrals but the umpire should have availed the umpire’s referral. But unfortunately he did not.
