LAHORE: The Pakistan Federation Baseball (PFB) has sought financial help from secretary of the Inter-Provincial Minister Chaudhary Ijaz in sending the national outfit to the 27th Asian Championship scheduled to be held from Sept 16 in Taiwan.

“Though the PFB has raised millions of rupees on its own and the Sports Board Punjab has also extended a helping hand to us but the federation is not able to send the team to Taiwan which needs a total budget of around Rs5 million,” said the PFB president here on Thursday.

“It is a great honour for Pakistan that it has qualified for the major Asian event wherein giants like Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China along with Indonesia are competing. The PFB with a view to performing well at the mega Asian event has hired the services of a Japanese coach and has organized the training camp two months back which still continues,” he maintained.

The PFB president said that Pakistan was currently ranked sixth in Asia while the federation’s main target was to attain fifth position after participating in the upcoming event in order to qualify for the World Baseball Classic-2016.

The federation was thankful to the Sports Board Punjab and looking forward to the IPC for a generous help as it was not easy for the federation to arrange a huge sum of Rs5 million, he further said.

He said last phase of the training camp was in progress at the Punjab Stadium wherein Japanese coach Toma Irokawa was imparting training to 20 players.

He said Pakistan baseball team was the best in South Asia, adding that the POA was also struggling to include the game in the Saarc Games being held in India in January 2016.

“If the Pakistan Olympic Association succeeds in getting entered the baseball to the Saarc, Pakistan would be in a strong position to get a gold medal in the regional gala,” he further said.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2015

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