KARACHI: Pakistan Scrabble Association (PSA) on Tuesday presented and introduced the two all-male teams that are to feature in the World Scrabble Championship (WSC) and World Youth Scrabble Championship (WYSC) to be played in Lille, France from Aug 27 to 29 and Aug 31 to Sept 4, respectively.

“This year, once again, we have a strong youth team, considered the favourite to win in WYSC,” said Tariq Pervez, PSA’s director youth programme.

The WYSC team have for the first time this year a professional coach as former world youth scrabble champion Moizullah Baig has been training the players for the past two months.

“We have very high hopes from our players especially at WYSC. Pakistan is considered the best youth team in the world, having won the WYSC in 2013 and being the runners-up in 2014 and 2015. It was in 2013 when Moiz was crowned the world youth champion,” said Mr Pervez.

Currently, Pakistan’s Abdullah Abbasi is the highest-rated youth player in the world and a favourite to win the title this year having finished as runners-up last year.

According to the director youth programme, Pakistan in their youth squad has at least one considered among the favourite to win in each of the categories of best debutant and Best player under-10, U-12, U-14 and U-16.

The entire squad of 23 males have been issued visas and they would be flying to France via Istanbul on Aug 25. They will all be travelling on their own expense though they have found a sponsor in Shangrila Foods who would be lending some support, too.

Mr Pervez said that he would also be submitting PSA’s offer of holding the WYSC 2017 in Pakistan.

Teams:

WYSC: Abdullah Abbasi (16 years), Ali Rashid (13 years), Sohaib Sanaullah (14 years), S. Imaad Ali (10 years), Ahad Riaz (17 years), Hassan Bin Arshad (17 years), Hasham Hadi (11 years), Abbas Ali (17 years), Muhammad Talha (13 years), Muddasir Javed (15 years), Taha Mirza (14 years), Daniyal Sanaullah (16 years), Absar Mustajab (17 years), Ahmed Salik (17 years), Saim Usmani (9 years), Monis Khan (8 years) and Daniyal Iqbal (13 years).

WSC: Waseem Khatri (eight-time national champion and Pakistan No 1), Moizullah Baig (Pakistan No 2), Hassan Hadi, Hammad Hadi, Mohammad Inayatullah and Tariq Pervez.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2016