14 January 2005	Friday	03 Zilhaj 1425

LAHORE, Jan 13: The Senate Standing Committee on Sports will be in the city on Friday and Saturday for two things - to conclude its discussion over the loss Pakistan cricket team suffered in the home series against India and to open debate over national hockey team's poor showing.

The committee has been discussing cricket team's 2-1 defeat in the Test series and 3-2 in one-dayers against the arch-rivals held in March-April last year. All 12 members of the committee are expected to attend the final meeting to be held at the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) offices on Friday.

After completing the discussions, the committee will prepare its report and make recommendations for the Senate chairman for sending them to the president of Pakistan, who is also the patron-in-chief of the PCB.

Besides the team's performance, the committee has also urged PCB to implement its new constitution which has been suspended since 1999 and to make PCB accounts public. The committee has also decided to grill Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) officials which, like cricket, failed to earn any notable international title.

The PHF officials will appear before the committee on Saturday. A spokesman of the committee told Dawn that they had called both PHF president Syed Tariq Kirmani and secretary Brig. (retd.) Mussarat Ullah Khan but it was not clear who would appear.

The Senate committee, which had also overlooked PHF and now suddenly decided to summon its officials at the time when the new president Syed Tariq Kirmani, who took charge on Jan 5, will not be in a position to explain the reasons. The federal sports minister Mohammad Ajmal Khan is also likely to attend both the meetings.