KARACHI: Eight teams in men’s and five in women’s will vie for honours in the Jubilee Insurance Roshan Khan Trophy which is being revived after a long time at the PN Roshan Khan-Jahangir Khan Squash Complex on Thursday.

Besides the hosts, all the outstation teams have been reached here to compete in the team event being held under the aegis of Sindh Squash Association (SSA) and sanctioned by the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF).

The details of the event were announced by the worthy son of the late Roshan Khan, legendary Jahangir Khan at a press conference held at the venue on Wednesday. Also present on the occasion were the SSA president Tahir Ahmed, secretary Rashid Ahmed and svp Tahir Khanzada.

The 10-time former British Open champion expressed optimism that the PSL final held at Lahore recently will open doors for foreign teams to come and compete in other games in the country.

Jahangir said he had recently met the security official of an international firm and discussed the issue of giving positive advice to the Professional Squash Association (PSA). The official, who was in Lahore on behalf of the ICC, is also on the panel of the PSA.

To a question he said participation of Balochistan in the event is a good omen and added that the province had a lot of talent. Hiddy Jehan and Zarak Jehan were the product of Balochistan.

Yet to another question he said Navy had assured him to raise a full-fledged team soon.

Asked about the Kashmir Road project that he owns, he said presently the work has been stopped due to some dispute among foreign partners.

Responding to another query he added that the academy established by him in collaboration with the PSF at the PSB Coaching Centre, has already started giving results.

In his speech the provincial squash chief Tahir applauded the former squash maestro for taking out time and grooming the youth.

He said ‘it’s an investment’ and sounded optimistic that a new crop of players will come forward after few years.

The men’s teams have been divided into two pools and after round-robin league, top two from each pool will propel into the semi-finals.

The women’s will compete on the single league and the top two finishers will play the final.

Wapda has been top seeded in men’s followed by the PAF. In women’s, Wapda heads the seedings while SNGPL is seeded second.

Meanwhile, Sindh has named its men’s and women’s team for the event: Noman Khan, Mahad Javed, Ali Imran and Sikander Khan (men’s), Zahab K. Khan, Anum Aziz, Naira Saleem and Zainab Khan (women’s).

The event concludes on Monday.

Men’s:

Pool A: Wapda, SNGPL, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan.

Pool B: PAF, ZTBL, Sindh, Punjab.

Women’s: SNGPL, Sindh, ZTBL, Balochistan, Wapda.

Thursday’s fixtures:

Men’s: Wapda v Balochistan and PAF v Punjab at 11am; SNGPL v Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ZTBL v Sindh at 2pm.

Women’s: SNGPL v Sindh and ZTBL v Balochistan at 11am; Wapda v Balochistan at 4pm.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2017