THE most active hockey academy of Pakistan, the Tauqir Dar Academy, has managed a tour for its team to Holland in August, giving a great opportunity to its players to play hockey in Europe, the region, which has become a dominant force in hockey.

Almost every year, the academy sends its team to some countries, especially Holland and Germany, from its own resources. Olympian Tauqir Dar’s family includes great Olympians Munir Dar and Tanvir Dar, his father and uncle.

Mr Dar says the entire trip is sponsored and he will not take a single penny either from the players or from any government department for the tour. He says the academy has made a number of good friends in Europe due to the professional conduct of its players and coaches.

He says the clubs against which the Dar Academy is to play matches are waiting for our arrival. He says the Dar Academy always gave a tough fi ght to European counterparts and that is why they enjoy while playing against our players.

He says it is pity that no other hockey academy is arranging foreign tours for their players.

Four to six players of the national senior, junior and under-18 teams are from the Dar Hockey Academy. The academy does not charge any fee from its students. In fact, it provides free of cost education and sports equipments to them.

The team will arrive in Vught, Holland, on Aug 15 to play matches against MOP and Rosmalen clubs, and then in Boxtel against MEP Club. In Eindhoven, it will play against Oranje Rood and then in The Hague it will play against Klein Zwitserland. In Amstelveen and Den Bosch, it will also play one match each before returning back home on Aug 30.

Olympian Danish Kaleem is the head coach of the team.

Finally, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has picked a new national team management bringing in Hassan Sardar as chief selector in place of Rasheed Junior. Ayaz Mahmood and Syed Musaddiq Hussain are the members of the selection team.

Farhat Khan will replace Khawaja Junaid as the next head coach.

The changes were made in the wake of the poor performance of the national team in the last World Hockey League (WHL) where the green team stood seventh, of the 10 countries, in London. It was also the qualifying round for the next year World Cup to be held in India. Chances for Pakistan to participate in the world cup are bright, despite their poor performance for the International Hockey Federation has increased the number of the participating teams from 12 to 16. The PHF and critics were not happy over the performance of the national team in the WHL, as it lost matches to India, Holland, Canada and Argentina by big margins, before winning against lowly ranked teams of Scotland and China.

The fi rst assignment of the new team management is the Asia Cup being held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from Oct 12 to 22. A victory in Asia Cup may boost the morale of the Pakistan team ahead of the world cup.

Though he is regarded the most successful centre-forward of the country, Mr Sardar as the chief selector during the Qasim Zia era was not so successful. Most of the time, he was not available to the PHF on key occasions. Perhaps, this time he will be more serious to the job. The national game of the country has been on a decline for the last 23 years. The new management has the race against the time, as the mega events like the world cup-2018 and then Olympics 2020 are not far away.

A Pakistan pentathlon team was honoured for winning one silver and two bronze medals in the Asian Championship held in Kazakhstan last week. Pakistan Modern Pentathlon Federation president Riaz Fatyana held a function in the honour of the team and praised the performance of the boys. Pakistan has been in this not so popular sport for a couple of years. Zahur Ahmad, secretary of the federation, said despite having limited international experience, Pakistani boys also earned some medals in the US early this year. He said the sport was expensive and his federation within the limited resources was doing efforts to hone the skill of the boys to compete at the international level.

Lahorites can enjoy indigenous wrestling bouts on July 30 at the Punjab Stadium as 20 fi ghts are being arranged in different weight categories. However, the main title fight -Shere Punjab - carries a Rs100,000 prize. A total amount of Rs300,000 will be distributed as prizes among the winners of the bouts.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2017