ISLAMABAD, July 22: For the first time in its history, the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) is to hold the National Team Championship starting from Friday (July 25) at Lahore.

As many as 12 teams will take part in the inaugural championship that is to take place at the Punjab Squash Complex.

Secretary of the PSF, Wing Commander Sajid Waheed told Dawn that the players on the teams had been given a minimum of one- year contract by the departments they would play for in the championship.

“Our Senior Vice President Air Marshal Raashid Kaleem had been making efforts to have the players accommodated with the departments for quite sometime,” Sajid said. “Now that the departments have agreed to look after the players a lot of burden is off us.”

He said that the departments would give players a minimum package of Rs 5000 per month, a quarterly kit and one odd air ticket for playing in an international tournament abroad.

The teams have been seeded based upon national rankings of July 1 with PIA on top followed by Mari Gas, Pakistan Air Force, Army, NWFP and Sindh. The other sides in the event will be CAA, Punjab, Balochistan, Railways, Navy and HEC.

The participants have been divided into two pools which see PIA, Army, NWFP, Punjab, Balochistan and HEC on one side and Mari Gas, PAF, Sindh, CAA, Railways and Navy on the other.

The PSF panel named for the championship has Karamatullah Chaudhry as the Tournament Director, Lt Col M. Rafique Shahid and Wing Commander Pervaiz Saeed Mir as members and Sajid Waheed. The teams:

PIA: Mansoor Zaman, Shahid Zaman, Arshad Iqbal Burki, Mir Zaman Gul.

Mari Gas: Farrukh Zaman, Khayal Muhammad, Saeed Hassan, Shah Nawaz.

PAF: Safeerullah Khan, Farhan Mahboob, Naveed Atlas, Amir Atlas.

Army: Zubair Ali Khan, Khalid Atlas, Asghar Khan, Majeed Hussain.

NWFP: Waseem Shad, Wakeel Khan, Riaz Hussain, Bilal Zaman.

Sindh: Azam Khan, Shehroze Khan, Asif Khan, Jehanzeb Masood.

CAA: Majid Khan, Basit Ashfaq, Aqib Hanif, Tariq Khan.

Punjab: Yasir Butt, Haider Jamal Zaffar, Farzan Rashid, Muhammad Waseem.

Balochistan: Hamayun Khan, Shahab Hussain, Rizwan Ahmed, Salman Nasir.

Railways: Faisal Sarwar, Muhammad Naveed, Adeel Hanif, Salahuddin.

Navy: Lt Cdr Saifur Rehman, Lt Cdr Tayyab Mehfooz, Lt Shakeel Haider, Rehmatullah Khan.

HEC: Atiqur Rehman, Waqas Shahiduddin, Zahid Naseer, Muhammad Laeeq.