The Dar Hockey Academy continues to play a major role in providing talented players to the Pakistan team. The latest achievement is its five players have been included in Pakistan’s junior team which is on a four-month tour of Australia to get modern coaching and training.

Waqar Younis (goalkeeper), Adeel Latif, Awais Arshad, Ali Aziz and Hammad Anjum have been named for the tour. They had been part of the regular training camp at the National Hockey Stadium for the last eight years.

Two other academy players, Asif Hanif and Zulqernain, are on standby. Four of the boys are on their second tour with the national team. Earlier, they were members of Pakistan’s bronze medal winning squad at the 2016 Boys Under 18 Asia Cup held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. For Hammad, it is his first international outing with the national team.

Tauqir Dar, the moving spirit behind the academy, said all the boys had benefited from training tours abroad. Adeel had visited Europe with the Dar Academy three times. Waqar and Ali Aziz toured the Netherlands in 2015 and Malaysia in 2016. Awais Arshad and Hammad visited Malaysia in 2016 with the Academy.

Pakistan’s junior team is in Australia, where it is participating in the National Junior Championships. After the junior championship, the team will stay in Australia for around four months to appear in Australia’s hockey league which will provide it an opportunity to play against various club teams.

Mr Dar, a former Olympian, is proud of the fact that his academy is contributing to the game by throwing up talent. His father Munir and uncle Tanveer also were the Olympians. He says he has been trying to give back to the game of hockey...

All the three Olympians were part of each Pakistan team which won gold medal at the Olympics. Munir was in the team when Pakistan won the first gold medal at Olympics in 1960, Tanveer was in 1968’s squad and last time when Pakistan clinched gold at this level, in 1984, Tauqir was a team member.

Last week, a tennis tournament after the name of Sheharyar Malik National Grass Courts Championships ended at Bagh-i-Jinnah, showering cash prizes of Rs720,000 among the finalists of different age groups.

The tournament also proved good for the participants of the Men’s singles event as the winners and losers of of 1st and 2nd rounds, quarterfinals and semifinals were also honoured with cash prizes.

National champion Aqeel Khan got Rs100,000 while loser Muhammad Abid received a price of Rs50,000.

In women category, winner Sara Mansoor got a cash prize of Rs35,000 while loser Esha Jawad got a cash prize of Rs18,000.

Overall 200 players from across the country were in Lahore, taking part in the competitions of the tournament which now will be held every year.

Sheharyar was elder son of ‘Davis Cupper’ and now international tennis coach of Pakistan, Rashid Malik. He died last year due to a cardiac arrest at the age of 20. Rashid Malik’s family and friends raised funds to hold this tournament as no big sponsor came forward. The players played tennis on grass courts after 14 years as the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) has not been organising any national event on such courts for the last 14 years.

Grass courts are available only in Lahore and Peshawar and the PTF, which is headquartered in Islamabad, where clay and hard courts are available, doesn’t want to hold any tournament out of its centre.

Despite getting huge funds of around Rs 60 million from the Punjab government, the Sports Board Punjab has yet to install floodlights at the Lahore City Cricket Association (LCCA). The provincial government has released the amount for the project.

Reports say when a private company of international repute completed the survey of the project three months back, the SBP came to know that its own SOP did not allow it to negotiate with any such company whose manufacturing units are in China.

Now, either the SBP will change its SOP or negotiate with another suitable company. The second option means the project will not complete this year and ultimately its overall cost will go beyond Rs 60 million.

It is not the only project which has fallen a victim to red tape; initiatives such as an international swimming pool and an international tennis complex, situated in the Nishtar Sports Complex in front of Gaddafi Stadium, have been delayed.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2017