While Pakistan stands nowhere in the world of sports, except cricket, tennis star Aisamul Haq is keeping the national flag high in his game. Aisam was competing in Wimbledon in London and reached the semifinals of mixed doubles that the pair lost. This is the first time Aisam reached the semifinals in the tournament. Last time he was ousted in the quarterfinals of the doubles in the event.

Aisam belongs to a tennis family of Lahore, which has produced a good number of international players. His grandfather Khawaja Iftikhar had established himself as an all-India tennis champion. His mother Nausheen Ihtesham had also represented Pakistan in the Fed Cup, an international event. Current national women’s champion Ushna Sohail and Davis Cupper Samir Iftikhar are his cousins.

Aisam has restricted himself to mixed doubles due to his age. After him, Pakistan has no one to represent the country in the Davis Cup. And that is very disappointing. It is the same country that ruled as champions in cricket, hockey, squash and snooker, besides getting medals on Asian level in wrestling, boxing and weightlifting.

A month ago the provincial government in haste removed Sports Board Punjab (SBP) Director General Usman Anwar from his post. The decision was taken by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in a video conference from London. Though he also made Sports Secretary Humayun Mazhar Sheikh officer on special duty, but Mazhar was still working on the post.

There was no official notification about the CM taking back his decision to remove the secretary, which reflected poor governance. At least the government should have cleared why the secretary was still working.

Moreover, no director general had been appointed yet. This despite the fact that the SBP has announced it had finalised the PC-I to construct 1,000 stadiums and sports complexes throughout the province. This shows how serious the government of Punjab is towards the betterment of sports.

The Punjab government did not even increase a single rupee in the annual grant of the board. To the surprise of many, the annual grant for the board has been unchanged from Rs40 million for the last nine years. It was last increased by then chief minister Pervaiz Elahi from Rs18 million in 2007.

In the last budget, Sindh, which has no significant standing in sports as compared to Punjab, increased grant for its respective board to Rs80 million. If the Punjab government’s policies towards sports remain unchanged, we may not be able to produce world-class athletes. Funds are being used to build sports infrastructure, but peanuts in just Rs40 million is reserved for sportspersons.

Along with the entire country, sports associations in Lahore expressed condolence over the sad demise of humanitarian Abdul Sattar Edhi, who died in Karachi this week. The Pakistan Olympic Association, Pakistan Cricket Board, Pakistan Hockey Federation, Lahore City Cricket Association, and many other associations and sportspersons called the death of Mr Edhi a big loss to Pakistan.

During Ramazan, the cricket board extended a helping hand to the Edhi House by deciding to print a logo of Edhi at the back of the cricket team kits for the England tour. Misbahul Haq, Azhar Ali and Sarfraz Ahmad were presented on the occasion.

Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Shaharyar Khan and the three captains of various formats of the game also appealed to the world to support Edhi as a candidate for the Noble Peace Prize.

The Lahore City Cricket Association is expecting new floodlights on its ground this year as a second installment of Rs30 million has been approved in the 2016-17 budget of Punjab.

A similar amount was approved in the last budget but efforts could not be made. However, the project is expected to be started this year.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2016