As expected, Punjab maintained its supremacy in the Quaid-i-Azam Inter-Provincial Youth Games, which ended in Islamabad this last week. Punjab claimed 151 medals, including 74 gold, 46 silver and 31 bronze. The athletes of Punjab deserve appreciation as they excelled in the games for the second consecutive time despite getting no support from the government in the last one decade. The cold attitude of the Sports Board Punjab (SBP) towards almost all the provincial sports associations for the last one decade is open secret. But even all the athletes provided by these sports associations helped the sports board field a big contingent of 387 members in all the 19 disciplines of the gala. The SBP did only host one-week training camp for the athletes. Before these training camps, the athletes were not in the radar of the SBP as provincial and national sports associations and federations feeded them.

It is time that the bureaucracy of the SBP open its eyes and recognize the services of the sports associations and extend them due support to groom the best talent to earn medals at the South Asian, Asian, Olympics and Commonwealth games. The talent of Punjab in sports is brilliant and the Punjab government needs to give some attention to it and provide the sportsmen with the facilities and incentives so that they could achieve the medals internationally as winning medals within the country is no big achievement for them. No other province can meet the talent of Punjab in the sports. One has already pointed out that 70 to 80 per cent players of the Pakistan team in most of the games come from Punjab, so the role of the government of this province is more demanding.

For the last 10 years, the SBP did not issue any annual grant to the provincial sports association. The Punjab Games could not be held for the last many years because of apathy of the SBP. The provincial sports associations of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have been getting annual grants from their respective sports boards but Punjab is not ready to recognise these bodies’ role. No Pakistan team and any individual sportsman can participate in the SAF, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games or in Olympics without the help of the provincial sports associations and national sports federations. May be Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif not be aware of this fact as it seems he is quite satisfied after sending one of leading politicians of the PML-N, Hanif Abbasi, to run the SBP. Hanif is looking least interested in the promotion of sports as he is more keen in the construction of sports complexes. But ironically, hardly any concrete work has been done on the sports complexes.

The most surprising performance, however, was given by the athletes of Balochistan, which claimed the second position, leaving behind KP and Sindh, two rather big competitors. Balochistan has been considered a backward province of the country but by notching up 26 gold, 22 silver and 38 bronze medals and with overall tally of 86 medals, it has upset KP and Sindh. The KP could claim 21 gold, 24 silver and 49 bronze medals to make aggregate 94, followed by Sindh, which clinched 20 gold, 26 silver and 43 bronze medals to make a tally of 89. Fata also seized seven gold medals, while Islamabad (six gold) and Gilgit Baltistan (four gold medals) occupied the 5th, 6th and 7th places. Azad Jammu Kashmir could earn one gold medal to finish at the bottom, 8th place.

One can hope that now the bureaucracy of the SBP, instead of relying on the results of the gala, will try to come out with a comprehensive programme to groom athletes who can earn medals at international level and the Commonwealth Games are just four months away.

Though hockey is dying in the country, some individuals are still busy keeping the sport alive. In this regard, Karachi’s Habib Public School, carries a great hockey legacy. It ended the tour of Punjab and played matches in some small and big cities of the province, including Lahore, Bahawalpur, Sadiqabad, Pir Mahal and Gojra.

The prestigious school has given numerous players to Pakistan hockey, including great names like Hassan Sardar, Sohail Abbas, and Kamran Ashraf, to name a few.

In order to groom young players, the school team has been making an annual training tour during the winter break every year since 2013. It visits different cities of Pakistan to play against the best local academies.

This time, the Habib Public School played a match each in no less than seven cities. After the fixtures at Hyderabad and Sukkur, the contingent crossed over to Punjab. Here, the first port of call was Sadiqabad, followed by Bahawalpur. Next assignments were at Pir Mahal and Gojra. These two last tiny tehsils of district Toba Tek Singh are among the biggest hockey nurseries of Pakistan.

The Karachi boys ended the whirlwind tour with a match against the Dar Hockey Academy at the National Hockey Stadium, Lahore, last week, which is also playing good role to feed up the national team with talented players.

The Habib Public School’s coach, Shakir Ali, termed the tour a big success, saying: “the boys learnt a lot playing against very strong sides. At many places, there were big crowds and over 3,000 spectators turned up at Pir Mahal. It was also a great experience to play at world’s biggest hockey stadium in Lahore”.

After a two-day short training camp held at the Gaddafi Stadium, the Pakistan team, led by Sarfraz Ahmad, left for New Zealand to play five One-Day International and three T20 matches.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2018