The staying away of eight Sindh cueists from the ninth national under-21 snooker championship held at Islamabad’s sports complex recently was seen as an ‘unsporting act’ to damage the sport but the perpetrators bit the dust in the end.

By boycotting the event, the cueists also brought a bad name to their province. In fact, their act saw the history being repeated since a group of top senior players had boycotted the 17th national ranking tournament, also held in Islamabad, in Aug 2008.

The senior players who had revolted in the past included Shahram Changezi, Mohammad Sajjad, Imtiaz Sarwar, Imran Shehzad, Raees Khan, Atif Mughal, Mohammad Asif Toba, Qadeer Butt, Sohail Shahzad and Mohammad Asif who was later crowned world champion.

They were issued show cause notices by the game’s controlling body but were pardoned later on.

The eight Sindh players who skipped the under-21 event were M. Farid, Ahmer Ali, Ali Zaman Khan, Muzammil Khan, M. Salik, Syed Jawwad Shah, Hamza Ikram and Shehryar Khan.

However, a quartet comprising Sheraz Raza, Abdullah Saeed, Shehryar Khan and Rameen Ashraf from Sindh had earlier participated in the under-18 contest. All of them made exit in the knockout pre quarter-finals. It is pertinent to mention that Shehryar was a part of both the teams.

The back-to-back junior events – the second national under-18 and the ninth national under-21 snooker championships – ended in a blaze of glory for debutant teenager Mohammad Naseem Akhtar who appears to be a star in the making.

Naseem, 16, who hails from Sahiwal, earned accolades by completing a double that earned him a collective purse of Rs 1,00,000 besides trophies. First he blanked Shaikh Mudassir in the best of nine frames final 64-6, 64-13, 72-26, 99-22, 55-25 to land the under-18 title and then whipped Haris Tahir 80-40, 42-70, 56-47, 85-10, 71-54, 76-4, 51-41 in the best of 11 frames final to annex the under-21 crown.

Before making his debut, Naseem had captured the Punjab under-18 and under-21 cups and justified his billing.

According to the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF), five players – Naseem, Mudassir, Haris, Rafiq Khan and Umer Farooq – have qualified to play the national circuit in 2017.

The pulling out of Sindh players after they had reached Islamabad has not only hurt the competition but also affixed a stigma to their names at the beginning of their sporting careers.‘I’d brought the issue into the knowledge of the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF) highups but have not submitted anything in writing,’ the tournament director Naveed Kapadia told Dawn.

He said he tried his level best to resolve their concerns, if any, in the interest of the game but to no avail.

“I’ll issue show cause to the eight players who boycotted the under-21 event,” the secretary of Sindh Billiards and Snooker Association (SBSA) Sikander Badruddin told Dawn when approached for comments.

Responding to a question, he said the issuance of show cause has been delayed as five players have not yet return from the upcountry.

He added the players who have arrived had complained lack of proper facilities at the PSB hostel that compelled them to move outside the sports complex and stay away from the event.

He had no answer when told that if the facilities were not satisfactory then why cueists from the other provinces participated.

When the opinion of the PBSF president Munawwar Hussain Shaikh was sought he said: “In the first stage he was issuing a show cause to the provincial association to explain as to why their players stayed away from the event,”

Decision whether to issue show cause to players individually or not will be taken in the light of Sindh’s official replay, he added.

The players, he said, have damaged their sporting career by skipping the event. There’s no Sindh player in the ongoing national junior camp in Islamabad, he added.

Meanwhile, the fate of these players hangs in balance as it is not yet known whether they will be reprimanded or pardoned for their act.

Published in Dawn February 4th, 2017