As things stand at the moment Pakistan has given no reply to the SAG secretariat as to whether it intends to host these Games. There is no word about the matter to sporting bodies within the country about the matter other with neither the Pakistan Sports Board or any sporting federation informed. The Pakistan Olympic Association has made some attempts to request the relevant members of government and the PSB to give a final answer as request pour in from the SAG secretariat, which is asking according to sources if the Games should be handed over to Sri Lanka, the country next in line to host them. Colombo has already said it will be able to do so.

Beyond the incompetence of the management bodies and the ministry responsible for sports is the question of whether we have made any attempt to prepare our athletes. In December 2019 at Kathmandu Pakistan finished in 4th place, behind India, as would be expected, but also behind Nepal and Sri Lanka, two nations much smaller then it in terms of size. Nepal which collected over 200 medals compared to Pakistan 132 had worked especially hard as host to get its squads ready, hiring foreign coaches and sending athletes abroad for training. Its second place finished on the medals table deserves applause. At this point in time Pakistan should be preparing in the same way.

But it is not. Instead its federations seem to be discouraging athletes. For example a young swimmer, Jehanara Nabi, 16, who has trained at the Thanyapura FINA next excellent facility since August 2019 set national records while competing in the Thailand Swimming Championship while competing in the 16-18 category a few days ago. She broke the national senior record by a good margin in both the 800 meter and 400m event and her age group record in the 200m event. However these superb times are apparently not to be recognise the concerned federation for reasons that a difficult to understand. The same rule has been applied to other swimmers and athletes competing in various events.

This can only discharge them and hold back growth in sport. We badly need this growth looking at what happened in Kathmandu and the fact that five Pakistan medals were taken way due to a doping scandal involving three athletes competing in the 400m hurdles, 110m hurdles and 100m sprint as well as two relay events.

This is a disgrace. Pakistan can make up for it only by beginning mammoth efforts to host the next edition of the South Asian Games and to give its athletes the best possible preparation the country, which has so much talent can achieve.