LAHORE, March 27: The newly-introduced blue astro-turf will be installed by May 15 this year which will greatly facilitate the national hockey team in preparing for the upcoming London Olympic Games. This was announced by Deputy Speaker of Punjab Assembly Rana Mashhood Ahmed at a news conference here on Tuesday.

“The Pakistan hockey team will be able to start practising on the blue turf as soon as it is laid in May,” Mashhood said.

Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) secretary Asif Bajwa was also present at the press conference as Punjab Sports Board director general Usman Anwar disclosed that the tenders for the installation of the turf had been opened in the presence of media and technical committee. The tenders had also been sent to the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority of Pakistan to ensure the transparency policy.

Bajwa thanked the efforts of Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif and appreciated his love and support for hockey.

While the green turf already in use at the ground is in pathetic condition, the new turf will prove to be a big boost for the national team since all the hockey matches in the upcoming London Olympics are to be held on the blue surface.

The Olympics will be held from July 27 to Aug 12 and the Pakistan team is likely to leave for London two weeks ahead of the mega event to practise extensively on the blue turf there. But if the blue turf is installed in Lahore by May 15, it will provide the national players a good two months to prepare hard for the Games.

It must be mentioned that the Punjab chief minister had sanctioned an amount of Rs30 million for the turf’s installation more than a year ago but unnecessary delay from the Punjab Sports Board in awarding the contract for its installation spoiled the national team plans.

As things stand today, the PHF is striving to host India and Malaysia in a three-nation tournament next month in Lahore.

However, the miserable condition of the turf at the National Hockey Stadium is likely to create an ugly situation.

Meanwhile, the electricity supply to the PHF offices was restored at 4:00pm on Tuesday. It has been reported that Sports Punjab had cut off the supply of electricity to the PHF offices late on Monday after new head coach Akhtar Rasool had expressed his disappointment over the pathetic condition of the astro-turf at the ground where he is to commence training of the national players for the London Olympics.

Akhtar’s statement, apparently, annoyed the Punjab sports officials and they ordered to cut off the electricity supply to the PHF offices. However, the recent announcement by Rana Mashhood seems to have cooled down the situation between PHF and Punjab Sports Board.

Interestingly, while the Punjab Sports Board claims to have organised Punjab Sports Festival across the province — from inter-union council level to Punjab level — in a record time of three months where around one million men and women athletes took part in various games, they amazingly failed to install an astro-turf for a national cause in almost a year.