Aleem Dar, the three-time winner of the best ICC umpire title, has also been running a cricket academy in Johar Town, Lahore, for the last 18 months. He also intends to run a cricket club alongside the academy to produce talented cricketers for the country.

In a chat with Dawn, Dar says he established the academy to accomplish a mission which he could not achieve as a cricketer. “I wanted to become a Test cricketer, but I failed to achieve my target for certain reasons. But now I want to produce Test cricketers.”

After playing the first-class cricket for his native town Gujranwala, Allied Bank, Railways and Lahore, he settled in Lahore where he got an opportunity to establish his career as an umpire.

In 2000, he got an opportunity to officiate the first international one-day match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Gujranwala. As it happens, the hurdles started blocking his way, and in dejection, he left for the US to settle there.

However, after only three months stay in the US the family pressure forced him to return to Pakistan. This time the luck was on his side as he had been included in the international panel of umpires and supervised matches of the ICC World Cup-2003 in South Africa.

The accuracy of his decisions elevated him as the most authentic umpire of the world as even the ICC acknowledged his performance. He was declared the best ICC umpire in 2009, 2010 and 2011, equaling the record of Australian umpire Simon Taufel. He has so far officiated 74 Tests, 151 ODIs and 19 T20 matches.

Dar says the reason behind starting the Dar Cricket Club was that an academy cannot be affiliated with the Lahore City Cricket Association (LCCA) according to rules. Now the academy will impart basic training to cricketers (seven to 17 years) who will then join the club. Currently, he says 75 players have been enrolled in the academy and 25 among them are deaf.

Dar says the academy is a non-profit entity and has been divided in three categories. The deserving players, irrespective of their financial status, are getting free training. The well-off players are being charged while all deaf cricketers are being offered free training. He says he has to make major contribution from his own pocket to run the academy.

He says he also wanted to provide training to girl cricketers, but a good number of boy cricketers in the academy had forced him to drop the idea.

Dar says he also intends to start training at the academy to produce talented umpires and expects support from the Pakistan Cricket Board in this regard. He says Ashraf Ali, the elder brother of Test cricketer Azhar Ali, is the trainer while Arslan Mir and Raees Amjad, who have passed a Level-II coaching course, are the coaches at the academy.

He says the academy needs more facilities to come on a par with academies in Australia and England. “I will soon establish a gym and install floodlights to introduce night cricket at the academy,” he says.

Extending thanks to Shahbaz Sharif for providing the ground, he has also requested the chief minister to allocate similar grounds to celebrated cricketers like Abdul Qadir and Inzamamul Haq so that they can produce talented cricketers.

It is heartening to know that his ground always get appreciation in meetings of the Punjab Horticultural Authority for its excellent maintenance.

Dar is to officiate the Ashes matches between Australia and England in coming days.

H H H H H

Finally, the elections of the Lahore District Hockey Association (LDHA) will be held on Monday (tomorrow).

Earlier, it was planned to hold elections on Nov 16, but the Pakistan Hockey Federation had postponed them till Nov 18.

The PHF has announced completing elections from the district to national level till Nov 25. The elections of the LDHA’s women wing will also be held simultaneously on Monday. Elections of the women wing in six other districts of Punjab -- Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Rawalpindi, Dera Ghazi Khan and Sargodha -- are also being held on Monday.

Though Olympian Naveed Alam has moved a petition against the elections, the Lahore High Court has fixed the next date of hearing on Nov 27. Therefore, it seems the PHF will succeed in completing the election process at all levels till Nov 25.