Sohail Abbas

Sohail has often said that his inspiration came from his uncle, Safdar Abbas, a left-winger who represented Pakistan from 1973 to 1981 where he scored against Argentina during the 1973 World Cup as a 16-year-old boy.

Abbas is keen to emphasize the part played by Safdar, who, Abbas says, inspired him as a youngster.

Abbas started playing hockey for his school and later for his college.

In the beginning he played as a forward but due to his physical built and unsatisfactory performance his youth coach moved him in the defense.

Dejected by this Abbas started practicing his drag-flick abilities to keep the scoring aspect of his game.

Before him Pakistan played a brand of hockey that was known for its speedy forwards who created goal scoring chances from their technique not penalty-corner specialists like the European style.

He started practicing solely on drag-flicks from watching old video tapes of former players and would spend hours on drag-flicks even after match practice.

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.

Sohail Abbas, (born 9 June 1977) is a former professional field hockey player from Pakistan who played as a Full-back.

Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time he is the all-time second highest goal scorer in international field hockey and highest goal scorer in modern field hockey (artificial turf) with 348 international goals.

A drag-flick specialist noted for his lethal flicks with great accuracy and speed in front of goal from penalty corners he is widely regarded as the 'King of the drag flick'.

Abbas started his professional career in Pakistan and played professional hockey in Malaysia, Netherlands, Germany and India in his career most notably for Dutch side HC Rotterdam.

Born at Karachi's Holy Family Hospital, Soldier Bazaar on 9 June 1977, Sohail is a former pupil of Karachi's Habib Public School, the school of many other hockey stars.

In fact, it has been rightly remarked that hockey is taught as a subject in this school.

He came from a sporting family; his father, Syed Iftikhar Hussain, was a former first-class cricketer.

He represented Karachi as well as Pak Crescent Club, famous for producing Zaheer Abbas.

Abbas is eldest of three brothers.

Raheel Abbas, his younger brother, is also former professional first-class cricketer.

After representing Pakistan at junior levels Abbas made his international debut in the Test series against India in February 1998.

He scored his first senior international goal in the second match of the series in a 2–1 win.

Abbas has 315 caps for Pakistan and in which he scored 348 goals including 21 hat-tricks an international record.

He has represented his country at 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010 FIH Hockey World Cups and the 2000, 2004 and 2012 Summer Olympics being the top scorer for Pakistan at both the World Cups and Olympics.

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.

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 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 the season 2003 and 2004, he won the National Hockey Championship back to back with WAPDA as captain.

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.

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.

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.

Abbas's extraordinary talent and goal scoring prowess mean that he is a target of hockey clubs all over the world.