Asia Cup: Ten-Nation event commences on 20 April 
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April 15, 2004 
Syed Akber Ali Wahidi
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By : Syed Akber Ali Wahidi
Pakistan and India have been placed in separate groups in the 5th Junior Asia Cup (JAC) which will commence on 20 April 2004 (Tuesday) with four matches.
Hosts and three-times champion Pakistan are placed in Pool A of the ten-nation competition. Their top pool rivals will be titlist South Korea while the other three teams in the group are Japan, Singapore and Chinese Taipei. Junior World Champion India head Pool B that consists of Malaysia, China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The Pakistanis will have to make sure that they beat Korea in order to avoid India, who have garnered a reputation of being the strongest team at the international junior arena.
The fifth edition of JAC, which will serve as the qualifying rounds for the 8th Junior World Cup 2005 in Amstelveen, Netherlands, will be played at the Hockey Club of Pakistan, Karachi from April 20 to 29. HCP will host 28 matches while one match will be organized at Defence Hockey Stadium. The number of places up for grabs have not been confirmed but Asia usually get three places. FIH will make the decision on the number of berths after the completion of all the continental qualifying rounds.
The Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) meeting on 18 December 2002 decided to allot the JAC to Pakistan. It was also decided Malaysia and Oman will act as reserve candidates if Pakistan would not be able to host the event. It was the day when Sultan Azlan Shah and Tan Sri P. Alagendra, both of Malaysia, were re-elected as President and Secretary-General respectively of the AHF. While the Sultan was elected without a contest, Alagendra won with an overwhelming majority against the Singapore's Annabel Dillon.
Some nations had asked the AHF to shift the tournament from Pakistan because of political instability. But the AHF decided in its council meeting, held in Singapore on Saturday (27 Dec 2003), that the venue of the tournament will remain the same.
The AHF have also decided that a total of ten teams will compete in the JAC 2004. The AHF introduced a two-division format for the tournament with high-ranked teams in Division I (Junior Asia Cup) and lower-ranked teams in Division II (Junior AHF Cup). But instead of just the champions of the Junior AHF Cup gaining promotion, the Council gave the nod to the top four teams to move up. Previously, any number of teams could take part in the Junior Asia Cup.
The inaugural Junior AHF Cup was staged at Singapore's Delta Stadium from 21-28 Dec 2003 and the four teams who manage to qualify for the Junior Asia Cup 2004 are Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Singapore. They will join Pakistan, South Korea, India, Malaysia, Japan and China in the first international hockey event on Pakistan soil since five-nation tournament in 1997 to commemorate 50 years of Pakistan's creation.
It was felt that more weak teams should be given a chance to compete against the top teams and not to restrict the tournament to the few elite teams. The increase in number of teams will not be a permanent feature. AHF want to ensure that there is quality in the tournament and that these lower ranked teams can put up a fight. If they are thrashed, like Iran conceding 69 goals in five league matches of JAC 2000, they may have no choice but to revert to their earlier decision.
Pakistan handsomely won the first three series of JAC in 1988, 1992 and 1996 but failed to match the nippy Koreans in 2000. The East Asians' hallmark fast-running game and supreme fitness came up trumps against the subtler and more delicate stick skills of the Pakistanis.
Pakistan finished fifth in the fourth JAC. Their failure to qualify for seventh Junior World Cup in Hobart as one of the top three teams was even more shocking than the surrender of a title that had previously been exclusively Pakistan's.
The history of this competition is orbited around 17 years and still Pakistan have a splendid record. They won three successive gold by winning 21 of the 24 matches. They drew with India in 1996 and lost to Korea and Malaysia in 2000. The goal counts in favor of Pakistan is 196-18.
Brigadier Manzoor Hussain Atif was the prime mover in the inception of JAC when he was simultaneously holding the chair of Secretary General in PHF and AHF. It was his ambition to dig out a competition on the line of Asian Youth Under-19 Football Championship which was launched by Asian Football Confederation way back in 1959 at Malaysia. The age-group soccer competition is biennial event while JAC is quadrennial show.
The first edition of age-group hockey competition, aimed at promoting the game among the youth of Asia, was allotted to Karachi and the trophy was donated by Sultan Azlan Shah, who is President of AHF since 1982. The first tournament at HCP from 25 December 1987 to 3 January 1988 ended in success for Pakistan which topped the seven-nation league.
The focus of attention was the match on the last day between two arch rivals although by that time Pakistan were already assured of the title. A match of high quality was somewhat marred by two hold-ups. The Indians disputed Musaddiq Hussain's goal while the second interruption was more serious when tempers became frayed after Tariq Sheikh was injured. In a scene of confusion several players from the Pakistan bench encroached on the turf and were rebuked by their officials. Order was restored and other scorers for Pakistan in 3-0 win were Qamar Ibrahim and Khalid Bashir.
Musaddiq was leading marksman with 20 goals while Pakistani skipper Shahbaz Ahmed was adjudged "Player of the tournament". A total of 260 goals were scored in the tournament, 173 against Macau which suffered 0-55 reverse at the hands of Pakistan. A world -record figure in this level of competition.
The second edition was shifted to Malaysia when Hong Kong was unprepared to conduct it in December 1991. Ten nations appeared at Tun Razak Stadium, Kuala Lumpur and it was also treated as qualification route for 5th Junior World Cup at Terrassa, Spain 1993. Earlier, Junior teams of Asia used to appear in qualifying tournament in order to earn the right to play in JWC. The four such competitions were held at Kuala Lumpur (1977,1984), Hong Kong (1981) and New Delhi (1988).
The overall picture in second Junior Asia Cup was unaltered as four seeded teams qualifying for the semi-finals. Pakistan worked hard to beat Korea 2-1 while Malaysia stunned India through debatable penalty-stroke goal. Pakistan reaffirmed its superiority by beating Malaysia 3-0 in the final on 23 September 1992. Leading scorer Muhammad Shahbaz netted twice, bringing his total to 13 while Pakistani pivot and skipper Muhammad Khalid Sr rounded off the tally.
The venue for the third edition was Singapore's Delta Stadium from May 29 to June 9, 1996 and it provided three qualifiers Pakistan, India and Japan for the 6th Junior World Cup at Milton Keynes, England in 1997. Pakistan had no problem in reaching the final where they were given a torrid time by India. The final was locked two-all and Pakistan completed the hat-trick of triumphs when the penalty stroke barrage was decided in a sudden death period. Under the captaincy of Muhammad Khalid Jr, Pakistan routed Japan 5-2 and India prevailed over Korea 2-0 in the two semis. Pakistani left-winger Babar Abdullah was named Most valuable Player.
The fourth edition at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil Complex, Kuala Lumpur from 3-14 May 2000 witnessed the end of a Pakistani monopoly on the title and confirmed Korea's position as the premier hockey nation on the continent. Competing against only four teams in league after a last-minute pull-out by Oman, Pakistan began by steamrolling Singapore and Chinese Taipei. No surprises there against mainly lightweight opponents, but their matches against Korea and Malaysia showed that all was not well when they went down 3-4 and 1-3 respectively.
India swept aside Japan, Bangladesh, China, Iran and Uzbekistan in other group. They also ended the dream of Malaysia in the semi-final before Korea upended the applecart by inflicting 3-2 win over India in the final. China's Song Yi emerged as the tournament's top scorer with 21 goals. Korea's skipper and goalkeeper Lee Myung-Ho was selected as the Player of the Final and full-back Lee Jung-Seon won the tournament's best player award.
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