CHITRAL: The Chitral Scouts won the District Cup Polo Tournament by defeating the Chitral Levies by three goals in the final match here on Thursday.

It was a thrilling game, whose control shifted from one team to the other until the last 10 minutes.

Feroz Ali of Chitral Levies scored the first goal of the match in the fourth minute, while the Chitral Scouts got an equaliser three minutes later when Shahzad threw the ball into the goal.

The Chitral Levies again got the lead five minutes later when Feroze scored his second goal. Before the end of the first half, the Chitral Scouts scored another goal to level the match.

In the second half, the two sides struggled to score goals. However, Chitral Scouts’ Miraj scored two goals one after another to give his team a decisive winning position.

The team scored the fifth goal in the last minute and thus, winning the game by three goals. District nazim Maghfirat Shah and Chitral deputy commissioner Shahab Hamid Yousafzai gave away the cup, medals and prizes to the players.

Forty-one teams participated in the tournament, which was held under the aegis of the district government for 10 days.

Meanwhile, president of the District Polo Association Shahzada Sikandarul Mulk regretted that the district government had offered a meagre allowance of Rs8,000 to each player of the tournament. He told Dawn that the local government had earlier announced Rs15,000 allowance for each player but didn’t act accordingly. The nazim said polo was an expensive game as the raising and keeping of a horse required hundreds of thousands of rupees annually.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2017