LAHORE: The 29th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament has been postponed due to the fast-spreading coronavirus.

The six-nation event, which was scheduled to be held from April 11 to 18 in Ipoh, Malaysia, will now be staged from Sept 24 to Oct 2. Australia, Canada, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea and hosts Malaysia were to participate in the event.

According to the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), the organisers of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup announced the postponement of the event on Monday.

Now Pakistan’s national training camp for the said event, which was to resume at Lahore’s National Hockey Stadium from March 5 after a one-week break, will not start.

Pakistan team’s head coach Khawaja Junaid said though the postponement of the event was unfortunate, the security of the participating players was also important.

Hopefully the tournament would be held as per the new schedule, he added.

He said the PHF in their plan-B might consider arranging a trip of the national team to Australia or New Zealand to keep the players in form.

The tournament’s organising chairman Abd Rahim Arif said the rescheduling of this year’s edition was done in the best interest of players, officials and all parties involved to prevent any Covid-19 infection, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives and infected 86,000 people.

“The health and well-being of the teams, especially from Australia, Canada and Japan, should be taken into consideration so as not to jeopardise their preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics,” Abd Rahim said in a statement.

Abd Rahim added the decision to reschedule the tournament has been conveyed to the International Hockey Federation, Malaysian Hockey Confederation, Asian Hockey Federation as well as the participating teams.

“We take this opportunity to apologise for the inconvenience but it is for the best considering the current global Covid-19 situation,” he said.

The Azlan Shah Cup becomes the latest sporting event to be hit by the coronavirus.

Formula One’s Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai on April 19, Asian Boxing Qualifiers, The World Table Tennis Championships, due to be held in South Korea from March 22-29 March, Singapore and Hong Kong events in the World Rugby Sevens Series are some of the global sporting events which have been postponed or shifted.

The Azlan Shah Cup is an annual men’s international invitational field hockey tournament. Australia have won the title 10 times, followed by India (4) and Pakistan.

South Korea are the defending champions after they beat India in the shoot-out in the summit clash last year.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2020