Men's Hockey World Cup 2018: Unpredictable Pakistan make cross over stage despite defeat

Unpredictability and Pakistan sport are almost like inseparable partners, so much so that when any of the country's sporting team does the exact opposite of what is expected of it, people tend to go, "Oh, Pakistan have done a Pakistan".

The country's hockey team has done its bit in keeping that phrase going, managing to qualify for the knockout stage of this Hockey World Cup despite a turbulent build-up and a league campaign littered with off-field distractions.

That the neighbours made it to the cross-over stage even after being swept aside 1-5 by Netherlands here on Sunday is thanks to Malaysia, who went down by an even bigger margin to the Dutch and thereby lost out on the third spot in Pool D to Pakistan.       

Pakistan will take that favour from Malaysia, though, considering they almost did not make it to Bhubaneswar.

The cash-strapped Pakistan Hockey Federation was struggling to find sponsors to fund their team's World Cup participation only about a month before the start of the tournament, until the owner of a Pakistan Super League – a domestic cricket tournament – bailed them out.

Once here, they settled the insecurities with an assured show against the mighty Germans, a 0-1 loss giving the world No. 13 team enough confidence to hold Malaysia 1-1 in their next game.

However, stability and Pakistan can't get along too well for too long.

A day after the Malaysia game, their captain Muhammad Rizwan Sr was ruled out of the rest of the tournament with a finger injury, while their vice-captain Ammad Butt was handed a one-match ban for a rough tackle, which was reduced to a reprimand by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Technical Delegate on Saturday.

Worse, their assistant coach was also handed a reprimand for a security offence of walking around the Kalinga Stadium here without his accreditation.

Amidst all these issues that relate to anything but their on-field play, one could forgive the Pakistanis for being a demoralised unit bereft of any will to fight.

"We kept the players away from all this," Pakistan coach Rehan Butt said here on Sunday.

"A lot of the credit for that goes to (manager and legendary Pakistan player) Hassan Sardar, who handled all these issues really well. He didn't involve me as well. He told me, 'you just focus on coaching'," he added.

Butt, a former national player himself, however, did admit that deep down, constant off-field distractions did affect his boys, who will take on third-ranked Belgium in the cross-over.

"The players are a bit disappointed with these kinds of issues. Somewhere, it has affected the team," he said.

Stopwatch: Germany 5 (Timm Herzbruch 2, 59, Christopher Ruhr 14, Marco Miltkau 18, 39) beat Malaysia 3 (Razie Rahim 26, 42, Nabil Noor 28), Netherlands 5 (Thierry Brinkmann 7, Valentin Verga 27, Bob de Voogd 37, Jorrit Croon 47, Mink van der Weerden 59) beat Pakistan 1 (Umar Butta 9)

Playing today (Cross-over)

4.45 pm: England vs NZ
7 pm: France vs China

Live on: Star Sports Select 1