ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Squash teams for both men and women — minus three top-ranked players- will leave for Korea on Saturday night to participate in the Asian Squash Team Championship, which is going to be held from March 21 to 25.

Later on, Pakistan will feature in the Commonwealth Games, which is slated to be held in Gold Coast Australia from April 4 to 15. It is relevant to note here that top-ranked Farhan Mehoob, Maria Toorpakai and Sadia Gul are not available for these two events.

According to the PSF statement issued on Friday, in order to select the best players to represent Pakistan in both these events, the PSF organised trials in Islamabad for men and women during the second week of February.

Asian Team Championship: After a five-day trial, top four Men players — Farhan Zaman, Tayyab Aslam, Amaad Fareed and Muhammad Asim Khan — were selected. It is relevant to note here that senior player Farhan Mehboob did not attend the trial due to health issues, thus he could not be selected.

Maria Toor, Madina Zafar, Sadia Gul and Faiza Zafar were selected for the Women’s team after the trials. However, after the trials, Maria Toor showed her unavailability for Korea due to ankle injury; therefore, Riffat Khan was included in the Women’s team. Moreover, during the process of finalizing visa and other travelling arrangements of the team, seasoned player Sadia Gul, according to the federation, also did not respond to PSF mails and telephone calls and stayed away without giving any reason. As a result, Pakistan Women’s Team would be playing in Korea with three players only: Madina Zafar, Faiza Zafar and Riffat Khan.

Commonwealth Games: As authorised by the Pakistan Olympic Association, two players (Farhan Zaman and Tayab Aslam) and two Women players (Maria Toor and Madina Zafar) were selected through trials for the event. Unfortunately on 9 March, Maria Toor again declined to play and asked the PSF to remove her name from the event because of injury while playing the PSA tournament in Canada, the press release said. After withdrawal of Maria, the PSF committee decided to drop Sadia Gul also from the event and put the next reserve (Faiza Zafar) to the Gold Coast for the women’s event in the Commonwealth Games.

The contingent’s traveling arrangements for the Commonwealth Games are being finalized by the Pakistan Sports Board and the Pakistan Olympics Association.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2018