Sohail Abbas

Abbas started his professional senior career in his native Pakistan playing for his departmental team Habib Bank of his hometown Karachi in the Pakistan National Hockey Championship. Abbas helped his domestic team to reach the final of the National Championship in 2001.

After a brief stunt with SSGC Abbas continued playing in the Pakistan domestic season but this time for WAPDA. In the season 2003 and 2004, he won the National Hockey Championship back to back with WAPDA as captain. He returned for his departmental team in Pakistan WAPDA from Netherlands in 2009. He was top scorer in the 2009 National Hockey Championship with 16 goals and in 2010 won the Hockey Asian Champions Club Cup. He continued playing for them in the domestic season until 2017 at the age of 40.[7]

Abbas's extraordinary talent and goal scoring prowess mean that he is a target of hockey clubs all over the world. He joined Dutch club Amsterdam HBC in 1999 playing the 1999-2000 season for them where he reached the semifinals, due to his commitments with the Pakistan team, Abbas only played for nine weeks and that too in two spells. He was provided with free lodging and boarding, offered a car and paid as much as 700 dollars per match.

In December 2002 he joined the Kuala Lumpur based side BS Nasional HC in Malaysia with whom he won the TNB Cup, the domestic cup competition and in April 2003 he played a season in the top division of Germany in the 1.Bundesliga for Harvestehuder THC of Hamburg.

In 2005 he played in the inaugural season of Indian Premier Hockey League for Hyderabad Sultans. He was the star attraction of the tournament and his team won the title.[8]

In May 2005 he made his second stint in the Netherlands after HC Rotterdam signed him for the promotion-relegation play-offs. He scored in his debut for the club as his team won the promotion to the First Division for the following season. Abbas finished as top scorer for his club with 20 goals in the 2005–06 season but his team failed to reach the finals. He again finished as top scorer for Rotterdam with 22 goals in 2006–07 season helping his team finish third and securing qualification for the inaugural season of the Euro Hockey League. In 2007–08 season his team finished third both in the Hoofdklasse and in the 2007-08 Euro Hockey League where he was joint top scorer with 7 goals.

According to Abbas playing in Netherlands with Rotterdam introduced him to different style of play and technique which added to a lot to his game. During the 2005-06 as Pakistan was hit with a devastating earthquake Abbas started a fund raising mission with the approval of his club and Rotterdam city council for the victims of the tragedy. He organized friendly matches between Dutch and international sides composed of international players from Australia, Germany, and India who were also playing professional hockey in Netherlands to raise funds that were to be directly transferred to the affected region through international relief organizations.[9]

In 2013 Abbas signed for Punjab Sports Club to play in the semi-professional Hong Kong premier league for a season.[10]

As a young hockey player, his potential was not realized for some time. He had difficulty making an impact on the professional hockey leagues between 1995 and 1998. Like many Pakistani hockey players, he is a product of the Pakistan Junior Squad. An impressive performance in the 18th Junior National Hockey U18 Championship at Quetta 1995 gained him a place in Pakistan Junior squad which drew their home series 2–2 against Germany Juniors. He was not selected for the tour of Netherlands, Germany and Poland, playing next for Pakistan in the third Junior Asia Cup at Singapore in 1996. He staged a return to the Pakistan Junior side in 1997, a side which beat Germany Junior in four consecutive test matches.

Four months later, he was dropped from the Pakistan Junior squad. Pakistan Junior team manager Samiullah Khan and coach Ayaz Mahmood were not convinced to include him for the 1997 World Cup staged in Milton Keynes – an underwhelming squad that failed to making it to the Junior World Cup semi-finals for the first time in the cup's 25-year history. Finally, he made his debut the following year on the national team and has since become arguably modern hockey's most prolific goalscorer of all time.

When he made his international debut during the 20th Pakistan-India series 1998, his role was only to come from the bench for penalty corner drills. His debut was at Peshawar's Lala S.M. Ayub Hockey Stadium on Saturday, 28 February 1998. Pakistan manager effected a substitution midway through the tie, but failed to make an impact. He failed to score in three penalty corners as Pakistan won 4–1. The following day, on 1 March 1998, in the second test at Rawalpindi's Army Hockey Stadium, Abbas announced his arrival on the international scene in dramatic fashion, scoring a drag flick from a penalty corner which proved to be the match-winner in Pakistan's 2–1 victory.

When the rule was changed after the 1998 World Cup, he was not considered for the 1998 Commonwealth Games by coach Shahnaz Sheikh. But he staged a comeback to win silver in 1998 Hockey Champions Trophy in Lahore and bronze at the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games. Abbas struck 20 goals in 1998.

In 1999 Abbas was in terrific form. He started off the year being the top scorer in both the 1999 India-Pakistan test series with 10 goals and 1999 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup with 12 goals helping Pakistan win the title for the first time.[11] He finished top scorer of the 1999 Hockey Asia Cup with 16 goals equaling the record of Hassan Sardar of most goals in an edition of the tournament in 1982.[12] During the match against Sri Lanka he scored 7 goals in the 15–0 victory making him only the sixth player to have scored a double-hattrick for Pakistan in a match. But Pakistan finished second after losing the final to South Korea. Abbas finished the year with 60 goals breaking the record of modern hockey's most international goals in a calendar year by Paul Litjens of Netherlands, 58.

Pakistan qualified for Sydney Olympics by taking part in 2000 Olympic Qualifiers in March 2000 in Osaka. Pakistan finished second on the Japanese soil, with Sohail scoring 13 goals to finish as leading marksman. Abbas was also leading scorer at the 2000 Olympic Games, Sydney, with 11 goals. Mixing his impressive hitting abilities with drag-flicks, Abbas has proved himself to be the world's most consistent drag-flick converter, his success rate over 65% mark. Pakistan lost the bronze medal match to hosts Australia by 6-3 finishing fourth. This as of now was the last time Pakistan played for a medal at the Olympics in hockey. His total goals in 2000 were 26.

Abbas scored a total of 37 goals in the 2001. Pakistan started off the year playing in an invitational tournament in Dhaka, Bangladesh where they finished second after losing the final to India on penalty strokes. During the tour of Europe he scored a hat-trick against South Korea in Hamburg, Germany. Later he was top-scorer of the 2001 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup with 10 goals but Pakistan finished fourth. In the last assignment of the year Pakistan played in the Champions Trophy in Rotterdam where he scored another hat-trick against Germany but Pakistan again finished at fourth place

Sohail attracted worldwide attention in 2002 when he emerged as the joint highest scorer along with Argentina's Jorge Lombi in the 10th World Cup at Kuala Lumpur. And all 10 goals that Abbas scored at the Bukit Jalil Stadium in the Malaysian capital were off PCs. He managed 44 goals in 2002 and added yet another feather to his cap in that year. Hasan Sardar was Pakistan's top scorer with 150 goals before Abbas unveiled his goal-scoring prowess. During the Six-Nation Invitational tournament at Kuala Lumpur, a month before World Cup 2002, Sohail scored his 151st international goal, becoming Pakistan's all-time highest scorer in international hockey. He struck nine goals as Pakistan managed bronze medals in 17th Commonwealth Games hockey tournament at Manchester. He struck hat-trick when Pakistan routed South Africa 10–2 in bronze-decider on 4 August 2002. Later, in the 24th CT in Cologne, Germany, Sohail played a major role and Pakistan finished third ahead of India.

Abbas managed 28 goals in 2003 and for the sixth time running, he finished as annual leading scorer for Pakistan. He struck five goals as Pakistan met success in Ipoh's 12th Azlan Shah Cup in March 2003 but later on Pakistan went to Australia without him, Muhammad Nadeem and Waseem Ahmad as the trio had defied the PHF by skipping the national training camp to play professional league in Germany. Sohail and Waseem represented German club Harvestehuder THC of Hamburg while Nadeem played for Gladbacher HTC. It was Abbas's third spell as pro hockey player after Dutch league 1999 and Malaysian League 2002 (he represented Bank Simpanan Nasional BSN along with Kashif Jawwad). Nadeem did return in time for the trials for the Australia-bound squad, but he was not considered for selection and Pakistan suffered embarrassment, finishing last in both twin 4-Nation tournaments at Perth and Sydney.[13]

Nadeem, later on, was reprimanded for his act while Abbas and Waseem were not allowed to appear in Pakistan-China series in July. They faced an inquiry committee on 14 July 2003 during which they regretted the mistake. Both were allowed to join the camp and seven days later were included in the team for the 25th CT. But their inclusion only came after hefty fines of Rs. 100,000 each on the players. PHF inquiry committee had also recommended a one-year ban on the duo. But PHF President Gen. Muhammad Aziz Khan brought an amicable end to the controversy when he said that the under-fire players will compete in the CT in better national interest.

Abbas (left) challenging for the ball against Argentina at a tri nation tournament in Alacalá la Real, Spain in 2004

Sohail started 2004 in whirlwind fashion and won the top scorer award in 13th Azlan Shah Cup at Bukit Jalil Complex. He struck ten goals with the help of two hat tricks against India and Germany. He managed one double hat trick and 21 hat tricks in international modern hockey so far: a record unmatched in international field hockey. Sohail recorded 59 goals in 2004 and was well poised to break his own world record of most goals in calendar year (60 in 1999) before retirement. Sohail was the key figure when Pakistan won a place at the 2004 Summer Olympics by finishing third at the 2004 Olympic Qualifiers in Madrid on 13 March 2004. Three times Olympic Champion Pakistan also qualified Sohail was also leading marksman at Madrid with nine goals. Four of these nine goals were against India in league encounter when he converted four out of four penalty corners. At Athens, he became the record Pakistani goalscorer in a single Olympiad, beating the 10-goal record of centre-forward Hassan Sardar, created at the Los Angeles Olympiad twenty years beforehand. Only Sohail, Sardar and Abdul Rashid Jr. have topped the goal scoring-chart in Olympics hockey.

Abbas scored his 267th international goal during the Champions Trophy in Amritsar, India to equal the 22-year-old record of Dutch penalty corner specialist Paul Litjens on 4 October 2004 and then on 8 October he broke the Dutchman's record.[14][15] He retired in December 2004, just after the Champions Trophy in Lahore along with another Pakistani great Waseem Ahmad, when he was only 27 years of age but on 4 July 2006, he decided to return to the international hockey.[16] Since the summer of 2005 he and Waseem have both played for Dutch club Rotterdam. He struck his 33rd goal to break Mark Hager's 9-year-old record. His 33rd goal emerged from penalty-mark when he converted 66th-minute penalty-stroke against India in Pakistan's 2–1 win on fourth day of 26th Champions Trophy. The Australian striker had registered 32 goals from 1985 to 1995. He took 11 editions for his 32 goals while Sohail did the needful in his 6th CT and added another on 12 December tie to make his final Champions' Trophy total 34. Abbas immediately after the end of 2004 announced his retirement from international hockey saying he wants to retire while at his best form while keeping to option to come back if the national team needs him for major tournaments.[17]

After retiring form the national team he missed all of the 2005 campaigns even the 2006 World Cup qualification in China but he was recalled for the tour of Europe and the 2006 Champions Trophy before the World Cup. Pakistan finished a disappointing sixth at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

After remaining out of national setup for two years and missing the 2008 Beijing Olympics Abbas was called back into the national squad for the 2009 Hockey Asia Cup where Pakistan lost the final to South Korea. Abbas helped secure qualification for the 2010 World Cup by winning the qualifiers in Lille, France, and later finished silver in the Hockey Champions Challenge I in Argentina. Despite good performances in the test series with Netherlands in previous months Pakistan finished their worst 12th at the 2010 World Cup in New Delhi managing to win just a match. Abbas first Major Gold Medal was in 2010 Asian Games held in China. Abbas's finest moment for Pakistan continued to be the 2010 Asian Games as he was part of the team which beat South Korea 4–3 on penalty strokes. Abbas however missed his penalty. Malaysia defeated India 4–3 and played Pakistan in the final. On 25 November 2010 the Malaysia v Pakistan final started during the 28th minute of the match Abbas scored a penalty corner to give Pakistan a 1–0 lead. Rehan Butt scored a goal 4 minutes after half time to extend the lead to 2–0. Malaysia failed to score and the whistle blew with Pakistan winning the 2010 Asian Games Hockey Tournament. This became Pakistan's first victory at the Asian Games since 1990 and their first victory in a major international tournament since the 1994 Champions Trophy. The 16-year drought ended and Pakistan and Sohail Abbas put a poor World Cup and Commonwealth Games behind them to give their country their first major trophy in 16 years.[18]

Abbas remained part of the team setup with the Olympics in mind. In 2011 he scored 19 goals for Pakistan. After serving Pakistan for almost 14 years, Abbas was awarded the captaincy of the national hockey side for the first time in the Azlan Shah Cup and London Olympics 2012.[19] Abbas's side ended 7th (last) in the Azlan Shah 2012 tournament. Similarly, they ended the Olympics at the 7th position despite starting off with a draw against Spain. Sohail was dropped from the team after the Olympics.[20] Later he announced his retirement from the national side.

Sohail Abbas holds the following records in field hockey:

WORLD RECORDS:

• Highest goals scorer in modern field hockey with 348 goals.
• Highest number of goals in modern field hockey in a calendar year: 60 goals in 1999
• Fastest to score 100 goals in modern international hockey: two years six months and 18 days.
• Fastest to score 200 goals in modern international hockey: five years five months and 16 days.
• Highest number of goals in a single edition of Asia Cup
• He has scored a record 21 modern field hockey international hat tricks including one double hat trick.