KARACHI: The preparation for the Junior World Cup, scheduled to be held in India in January next year, remains halted because the committee formed by the Prime Minister to ascertain the reasons behind the failure of Pakistan to qualify for Rio Olympics has yet to present its report, ‘The News’ has learnt. All junior players have been inactive since October 2014. The former national junior selection committee selected 35 players but their training camp remains suspended for several months. When PM Nawaz Sharif appointed the five-member committee headed by secretary IPC Ijaz Chaudhary, it was given a week to identify the facts of Pakistan’s failure in the qualifying rounds of Rio Olympics. More than two weeks have passed but it has failed to finalise its report. The junior team failed to reach the quarter-finals of the 2013 World Cup. Their chief coach Manzoor-ul Hasan has serious differences with the PHF. The assistant coaches Kamran Ashraf and Muhammad Irfan have resigned from their positions. No schedule has been announced for the training of juniors and nobody knows who will be the coach and the assistant coaches. In April, the national junior hockey championship was played in Karachi, but PHF did nothing to pick fresh talented players from the competitions. Before the World Cup, the junior team is to visit some European countries for honing their skills, but no schedule has been announced of trials and training. Olympian Qamar Zia said that the performance of the junior team in the World Cup would be vital for future of Pakistan’s hockey. “We are already out of major competitions of seniors. Now the juniors are our hope. The government must take decisions about how to run the PHF as soon as possible in order to save the national game from further damage,” he said. After the failure of seniors, people have pinned their hopes on the juniors to do something better for Pakistan hockey. All eyes of the hockey community are upon the PM’s committee because after its findings the fate of the PHF will be decided.
