Jansher Khan. -Photo by PPI

LAHORE: Squash legend Jansher Khan, recently appointed as national coach and adviser to the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF), has claimed that Pakistan — with the time available to prepare youngsters — can win next year's World Junior Championship.

In an exclusive interview to Dawn here on Friday, Jansher, who won the World Open a record eight times besides securing six British Open crown during his heyday, believed there was enough time for him to prepare talented youngsters in best possible way for the global championship.

Pakistan won its last World Junior Championship title way back in 1986 through Jansher.

“Once our young players win the [world] junior title they can be further polished to put them on track for the world senior title too,” Jansher asserted.

The World Junior Championship is scheduled to be held in Belgium in July next year.

He added he was eyeing the Belgium event, while expressing that the real challenge for Pakistan players was the World Junior event, and not the Asian Championship, to be held in January next year.

“After me Pakistan has not been able to win the World Junior title [since 1986] and that is a big gap. Hopefully now with better preparation levels the title will come back to the country,” he remarked.

The former world No 1 player said soon after taking the assignment he had started the training camp in Peshawar to prepare the boys for both Asian and World Junior championships.

Jansher, who in the past had been at odds with the PSF, to a question said he joined the hands with the federation after getting full authority to work. And in this regard he expressed his gratitude to PSF President Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman and Senior Vice-President Razi Nawab.

Jansher said he would recommend the PSF president to announce a bumper prize of Rs10 million for players who would make the world's top ten.

“Such big incentives can inspire the players to work hard to be the best in the world and hopefully the PSF president will agree to my recommendation,” he said.

Emphasising the significance to work at the grass roots level, Jansher said he would welcome any educational institution looking to start squash.

He agreed with the questioner that the national-level competitions could be increased if all the PSF-affiliated units were bound to organise at least one junior and senior level tournament annually.

“As an adviser I will table this proposal before the PSF president, as a good number of local competitions are helpful in producing the talent,” he said.

He added that all the former great squash players including Jahangir Khan, Gogi Alauddin, Mohibullah and others would be engaged to produce the required talent for the PSF.

“I invite all the celebrities like Jahangir Khan and others to come forward and join the hands with the PSF for the national cause,” he expressed.

He said professional people were the real force to plan for a better future as in the past the PSF had spent a huge fund of Rs50 million on sending top players abroad to improve their ranking. But, Jansher lamented, nothing could be achieved.

He said the Pakistan players were lucky as no federation of the world provided their players any air ticket or allowances to compete in international events.

Jansher advised the players to give maximum time to their training and to show more spirit for the game if they really wanted to become world's best.

“I feel now the players are not giving much time to their training and without it they can't be world beaters,” he concluded.