ISLAMABAD, Jan 7: Seven Pakistani junior squash players along with a joy rider — Pakistan Squash Federation’s (PSF) Secretary Wing Commander Shams-ul-Haq — will be returning on Thursday after a pathetic performance in the British Junior Open Squash Championship in Sheffield, UK.

The four-day event saw the almost all of the juniors participating in the Under-15, U-17 and U-19 age categories and losing all their respective group matches.

With the exception of Danish Atlas, all of Pakistan’s junior players, comprising Maria Toor, Waqar Mehboob, Shoaib Hassan, Nasir Iqbal, Bilal Zakir and Ali Bokhari, lost their respective matches at the championship. Only Danish Atlas won a silver medal, losing the final against Amr Khalid Khalifa of Egypt.

The Egyptian defeated Danish with a game score of 11-3, 11-4 and 14-12 in an encounter that lasted half an hour.

Speaking to Dawn on Wednesday, squash legend Jahangir Khan said: “The current tour was a joy ride and nothing more than that for the PSF Secretary as is evident from our highly-disappointing results.”

Jahangir expressed the need for some kind of accountability for PSF officials who travel with the team on low-profile international tourneys where our players too put up embarrassing performances.

“It is the responsibility of PSF officials to insure good results but the current performance was shameful,” he said.

“There was simply no planning for the event and we were embarrassed before the whole world,” he added.

Jahangir, who won the British Open for a record 10 times, pointed out: “There was a time when we clinched all the categories in the British Junior Open and look at us today. We are nowhere!”

“The Egyptians,” he said, “have emerged as the leaders in squash and the only reason for this is that they have effectively planned to build a junior squash string.”

Meanwhile, another squash legend Jansher Khan said: “There is simply no logic as to why the PSF secretary accompanied the team for the junior event, despite the fact that there was a coach accompanying the players.”

He asserted: “The Federal Sports Ministry should investigate the debacle at the championship.

“We need a system change in the PSF and such joyrides should not be tolerated at all.”

The PSF Senior Vice President AVM Asim Suleman was not available for comment despite repeated efforts to contact him.