KARACHI: Pakistan bridge teams will have a busy schedule in the coming months as they will be featuring in the Asia Cup Bridge and Asian Games, the Pakistan Bridge Federation (PBF) announced on Saturday.

“These are two big events and we are working out plans for them because we only received this information on Thursday,” PBF secretary Ihsan Qadir told Dawn.

He said third edition of Asia Cup Bridge Championship will be held in Goa (India) from June 4-10 with around 30-nations will be featuring in the championship.

Ihsan, a qualified arbiter of World Bridge Federation, said both men and women teams would be taking part in the competition for which trials will be held to select the teams for which dates and venues will be finalised in due course of time.

He said since Pakistan bridge teams are making debut in Jakarta Asian Games and PBF are not affiliated to Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) to work out details of different nature, they have already spoken to POA Chief Gen. (Retd) Arif Hasan and things are on the right track.

He said Pakistan is eligible to send bridge teams to Jakarta and two or three teams may be sent for the Asian Games. He said Pakistan don’t have mixed teams.

The XVII Asian Games are scheduled to be held in Indonesian capital from August 18 to September 2 under the auspices of Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) which included bridge for the first time in the sporting extravaganza.

Ihsan said he would be holding the 14th Balijee International Bridge Championship at Lahore Gymkhana from March 23 to 25. He said teams from India, three women teams from Dubai and players from Egypt and Kuwait also take part in the 3-day bridge gala.

Meanwhile, secretary general of Bridge Federation of Asia and Middle East (BFAME) Azwar-ul-Haq said big teams from Australia, China, Korea, Indonesia, Jordan, Japan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Philippines and Qatar etc will be competing in the Asian Games and this will be a good opportunity for Pakistan players to show their potential and win medal for the country.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2018