Pakistan squash team won’t feature in Malaysian events

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) has decided not to send World Junior Championship bound team for Malaysian events, allowing them to compete against some of best seniors in back to back circuit events in Lahore and Karachi.

A record number of 19 Pakistan juniors have been drawn to compete in the Borneo and Penang Junior championships in Malaysia. The strength, however, does not include the names of six top local juniors who have been selected to compete in the World Junior Championship (individual and team event) to be held in Chennai (India) from July 18 to 29.

These include Abbas Zeb, Uzair Rasheed, Haris Qasim, Farhan Hashmi, Asadullah and Uzair Shoukat.“All the Chennai-bound junior players have been asked to compete in PSA circuit events to be held in Pakistan rather than competing in back and back junior events starting in Malaysia in a week time.

The reason being that here they would get much better competition against ranked players. So it would be easier to monitor their progress and at the same time judge their competitive element against the best of local players,” a PSF official when contacted said. He said that decision not to send these top junior players was taken to provide them the best of competition. “Playing against the juniors in Malaysia would not be ideal scenario for them. Instead they would be engaged in training cum competition process here in Pakistan.” Lahore is to host $ 10000 international circuit event from June 25 with action shifting to Karachi at the start of July for yet another $ 10000 event. “The two back to back circuit events would provide the juniors best of platform to improve their resilience ahead of the World Junior Championship,” the official said. Pakistan contingent is expected to travel to India in the second week of July for the event. “The exposure against the best of seniors would help juniors get into top shape for the world event.” PSF has submitted the required documents for Indian visa in late April are waiting for the travel documents enabling the team leave in time for Chennai World Juniors

Meanwhile, a record number of juniors would travel to Malaysia for the two events. “These are the back-up players. Our effort is to invest heavily on juniors and we are doing it with the help of our provincial associations The crop would act as our back up for the coming international junior events.”