ISLAMABAD: Chief of the Air Staff, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman, who is also the president of the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF), on Monday underlined the need for collective efforts by the provincial associations and other PSF members to promote the game.

He also awarded cash prizes to the Pakistan team on winning gold medal at the Asian Squash Team Championship held last month.

“The PSF president highly commended the performance of the gold medallist team at the Asian Squash Team Champ­ionship,” said a PAF press release.

The Pakistan squad comprising Farhan Zaman, Farhan Mehboob, Tayyab Aslam and Israr Ahmed participated in the championship, staged in Chinese Taipei, along with Fahim Gul and Group Captain Amir Nawaz as coach and manager, respectively.

After winning their pool matches, Pakistan reached the quarter-final where they beat Iraq before downing arch-rivals India 2-1 in a tough semi-final.

Pakistan defeated Hong Kong in the final.

Presiding over PSF’s 43rd annual general meeting at the Air Headquarters here, Air Chief Marshal Sohail urged players to focus on the game and further improve their physical and mental strength. Representatives of provincial associations, affiliated members and those of the Pakistan Sports Board were also present at the meeting.

Meanwhile, the meeting also unan­i­mously elected Qamar Zaman and Tahir Khanzada as PSF vice-presidents for four years.

Assuring financial and administrative support by PAF, the PSF president asked the member associations to generate further resources to meet the challenging task through an improved system.

Directing the member associations to promote squash at the grassroots level, the PSF president also desired to introduce the game in schools and colleges to spot and groom talent at national and international level.

Reviewing the federation’s activities during 2015, the PSF president showed his satisfaction over the hectic efforts made for reviving international squash in Pakistan, development of academies and some outstanding performances by the Pakistani players — including winning gold and silver medals in the Asian and world level competitions.

The successful organisation of the Pakistan-Egypt squash series at the PAF Museum in Karachi, Pakistan’s victory in the 2016 Asian Team Championship and holding of four major PSA events of $25,000 prize money each with international players’ participation was also lauded by the general council.

The performance evaluation of provincial associations for the year 2015 was also carried out by the general council.

The KP Squash Association was awarded the Winner’s Trophy for their impressive performance while the Punjab Squash Association stood second.

Sohail presented trophies to the representatives of provincial associations.

The council meeting also agreed that the PSF would continue to sponsor men and women players in international team events for which their selection would be made through fair trials and performance evaluation.

Moreover, performance-based sponsorship will also be given for provincial squash association events.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2016