Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are? (500 words)
I was conscious of the captain’s armband that I wore as I walked on to the hockey field, with my team of 11, for the most important game of my career. I knew the odds were against us, but I held my head high as I had already proved my critics wrong by not only recovering from the knee injury that I had suffered at the national training camp for the Pakistan team but also leading my team to the final of the All Pakistan Inter School Hockey Championship 2013. And I needed two goals to become the highest scorer of the tournament.
It was Gojra Public School against Aitchison College at the National Stadium in Lahore with a crowd of over 20,000, primarily students from schools of different cities. Our opponents were top ranked Gojra Public School – Gojra is a relatively small town but prides itself on hockey, with nearly 50% of Pakistan’s national team coming from this town. As the game started I immediately noticed that our opponents had used two of their best defenders to mark me, the most likely candidate to score the goals from the Aitchison team. I ignored the pressure and tested an aggressive forward strategy to score the first goal. But when our opponents scored two goals, I called for a team huddle. We decided to strengthen our mid field and create targeted attacks. Then I began to engage the two markers while passing the ball to create opportunities for forwards to score. After 45 minutes, the game was drawn at 2 goals each. 30 minutes of extra time, and 5 penalty shots for each side followed the regular game time to break the tie but to no avail. This led to a sudden death penalty shoot and our goalkeeper blocked the Gojra shot.
I could feel my knee as I jumped and stretched on my walk to the penalty. The crowd was in silence. My team had chins in air for that last prayer. I focused on the goalie and
