Sohail Abbas

Sohail Abbas is a field hockey defender, penalty corner specialist and former captain of the Pakistan Hockey Team. As a young hockey player, his potential was not realized for some time. He had difficulty making an impact with his mediocre statistics on the professional hockey leagues 1995-98. 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. Sohail, who struck 20 goals in 1998, was in terrific form in 1999 when Pakistan won the Azlan Shah Cup for the first time and got silver in Asia Cup. He was leading scorer in 8th Pakistan-India Series. Of 16 Asia Cup\'s goals, seven were against Sri Lanka which allowed him a place in a select band of nine players who registered double hat-tricks in international circuits for Pakistan. On 1 March 1998, in the second test at Rawalpindi\'s Army Hockey Stadium, Abbas arrived on the scene, scoring a drag flick from a penalty corner which proved to be the match-winner in Pakistan\'s 2-1 victory. Abbas scored his 267th international goal during the Champions Trophy in Amritsar. Sohail was also leading scorer at the 2000 Olympic Games, Sydney, with 11 goals, and of the 9th Indo-Pakistan series, with seven goals. . Mixing his impressive hitting abilities with drag-flicks, Abbas has proved himself to be the world\'s most consistent drag-flick converter. 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. He is the highest goal scorer in the history of field hockey,with his current goal tally at 348, as of 9 Aug 2012.