January 7, 2003	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 3, 1423

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KARACHI, Jan 6: Careless attitude of the concerned officials may deprive the players of the credit they deserve at the ongoing 50th national hockey championship qualifiers here.

The happy-go-lucky officials have made it a habit to provide scoresheets to the press containing erroneous scores and results of the country’s premiere hockey tournament matches.

For example, on Jan 4, the scoresheet of the match between Lahore and Sargodha given to the newsmen showed Sargodha as the 4-3 winners against Lahore. But down in the scores only three goals from Sargodha were mentioned instead of four.

The official scoresheet of the Lahore-Naseerabad game on Jan 5 showed Lahore as the winning side with the score 22-0, whereas Lahore had won with a score of 24-0.

Incomplete names of the players in the official line-ups is also a source of nuisance for the media.

Besides the figures shown in the scoresheets are, at times, almost illegible. The casual approach of the concerned officials will do no harm to the media, but the players will ultimately be the losers as their achievements will be attributed to others in the newspapers match reports.

To make matters worse, officials did not bother to provide reporters the official scoresheet not only before the match but even after the game between Sargodha and Kohat on Jan 5.

It would also have been better had the technical officials implemented international regulations as few players from almost all the participating outfits could be seen wearing white sneakers and socks instead of black or dark colour shoes.

Naseerabad were seen playing with different colour shorts as some wore white, few had blue while others black against Lahore on Jan 5.

Meanwhile, Karachi ‘A’ and Lahore will be clashing in a crucial tie in the 50th national hockey championship qualifying round Tuesday at UBL Sports Complex.

Karachi ‘A’, with 12 points, needs a victory or even a draw with Lahore (nine points) to qualify for the final round, while Sargodha (nine points), who will be facing minnows Naseerabad, have a better chance to reach the main round.

Two top teams of the qualifiers will reach the final round.

Tuesday’s fixtures: Sargodha v Naseerabad at 11.30am; Mekran v Kohat at 1.30pm; Lahore v Karachi ‘A’ at 3.30pm.