Lahore’s Dar Hockey Academy has won an Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) inter-club tournament in Ipoh, Malaysia, by defeating the country’s National Sports School (NSS) in the final.

The academy participated in the tournament on the invitation of the Asian body of the game.

Olympian Danish Kaleem is the coach of the team which had hectic practice sessions for the tournament.

It was the fifth tour of the academy abroad as it had toured Europe four times and played tournaments in Holland and Germany.

It has produced four players each for the current Pakistan senior, junior and U-19 teams. It is running on a self-help basis. Such academies could revive hockey in Pakistan.

Olympian Tauqeer Dar, mentor of the academy, said it was a great victory of his academy as the NSS had good players and it was providing players to national teams.

A victory against such a club, especially after losing to them in the league match, was important.

“The boys had to play the final hours after receiving the sad news about the death of their former head coach, Olympian Ikhlaq Ahmad, who died in Sheikhupura of cancer. Ikhlaq remained with the academy from 2009 when it started in Lahore till 2012 before he went to Myanmar as its national hockey team coach. Ikhlaq was the member of the Pakistan bronze medal winning team in Olympics-1992,” Mr Dar said.

Lahore witnessed a number of sports activities during the last one week. Tennis players from across the country remained busy in a national junior tennis championship at the Bagh-i-Jinnah.

The 6th Chief of the Naval Staff Golf Championships brought more than 180 golfers from across the country to Lahore. The championship is in progress at the Royal Palm Golf Club. It is an event reserved only for amateur players as all professional players are playing in a national level tournament in Karachi.

The 22nd National Baseball Championships is in progress at the Bahria Town Baseball Ground with nine teams from all over Pakistan. Besides four provinces, the teams of Fata and Islamabad are also in Lahore while three teams of the army, Wapda and police are also taking part in it.

The Lahore City Cricket Association (LCCA) ground is waiting for the floodlights for which Rs60 million were released in the last fiscal budget of Punjab as the contract has not been given to any bidder.

Dawn learnt that the bidding process is likely to be completed till mid-December. The project is four years old but still it is going through the different processes. The LCCA is a traditional ground of Lahore which has also hosted some matches against international teams in the past. It is also the headquarters of the Lahore Region Cricket Association.

In Lahore, no cricket ground has standardised floodlights facility except Gadhafi Stadium whereas Karachi has a good numbers of such grounds. The LCCA ground also needs a cafeteria and a hostel to provide accommodation to the visiting teams.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2016