The National U-21 Hockey Championship is in progress at the National Hockey Stadium in Lahore which will continue till next week. A good number of 320 players, coaches and managers of 16 departments and provincial teams are featuring in it for the title.

But still the event fails to attract a good number of spectators, apparently implying that the game is losing fast its popularity. It is the duty of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) to make extra efforts to attract fans.

The championship is a very important event of the annual calendar of PHF, as it helps hunt talent for the upcoming Junior World Cup to be held in September this year in India. Recently, a gold medal earned by Pakistan Whites team in the South Asian Games in India after beating the hosts in the final has boosted the morale of the PHF for a good performance in the Junior World Cup. Overall, it is a very encouraging sign that National Bank of Pakistan, Police, Pakistan Board, Railways, Wapda, Sui Southern Gas Company, Army, Customs and Pakistan Ordnance Factory are having their U-21 hockey teams. The provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have fielded their two teams, each in Whites and Colours, while Balochistan, Sindh and Islamabad put up one team each. Unfortunately, the PHF has no tradition to take advantage of the presence of too much sportspersons from across the country in one city by arranging their visit to historical sites. Just some yards away from the PHF secretariat, the Punjab government has started a tourism bus service, which can serve this purpose very easily at an economical rate.

In another development, national training camp of Pakistan hockey team has also been shifted to Lahore from Islamabad. Newly appointed head coach Khwaja Junaid says owing to the ongoing U-21 hockey championship at the NHS, the camp is being held at the Johar Hockey Stadium from next week. However, he says, soon after the end of the U-21 event, his camp will also be shifted to the NHS. The camp is being set up to prepare a Pakistan team to compete in the next month Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament to be held in Ipoh, Malaysia. It will be the first assignment of Khwaja Junaid after assuming the office of head coach.

The most prestigious event of the polo calendar, The National Open Polo Championships for the Quaid-i-Azam Gold Cup is in progress at the historical Lahore Polo Club. Various foreign players have reached Lahore to compete in this biggest event for different teams.

So far Santiago Cernadas, Pedro Guiterrez, George Meyrick, Juan Cruz Losada, Pedro Zacharias and Max Charlton are competing for different teams. Two Englishmen Howard Smith and Ben Turner are also in Lahore to supervise the matches as umpires. Local players Hissam Ali Hyder, Saqib Khan Khakwani and some others are also performing well amid the star performances being given by the seasoned foreign players. The Lahore Polo Club is a historical venue established by the British government in 1880s and still is well maintained by the administration of the club. A riding school is also working there, producing new players.

Hopefully, the Lahore City Cricket Association (LCCA) ground, will be equipped with floodlights this year. Though the project was to be completed in March by the Punjab government, after completion of its survey by a foreign company, no further steps are being taken to start the work.

In 2013, an attempt had also made for this facility by the then ad hoc body headed by Aizad Saiyed.

The electricity poles had been dumped at the ground, but no further work was done before the ad hoc set-up was changed. LCCA President Khwaja Nadeem says the project

will be started soon as almost all the paper work has been completed.

The LCCA ground needs the facility, because in Lahore no ground is available to provide clubs a cheap facility to play cricket under floodlights.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2016