Eight-year-old Asadullah is a class IV student and loves the game of hockey. He lives in the quarters of the National Hockey Stadium as his father is an employee of the Sports Board of Punjab (SBP).

Asadullah said he wanted to play hockey like these boys, pointing to the players of the second Inter-School Hockey Tournament. The tournament was held by the Dar Hockey Academy at the National Hockey Stadium this last week.

Asadullah wants to be goalkeeper of the Pakistan national team.

Though there is no so much glamour in the hockey game in Pakistan, very few children still want to be a hockey player. Senior officials need to contact such players and groom them.

Former hockey Olympian and Dar Hockey Academy mentor Tauqir Dar says Asadullah has a great potential and they have provided him goalkeeping gadgets of his age, which are not available in Pakistan.

Tauqir says lots of efforts are required to revive the game of hockey and one of them is to promote the game in schools and colleges.

“Though after good efforts, the academy could gather only six schools for the tournament from Lahore,” he said.

“The presence of top schools like Atchison and Crescent in the competition is very much encouraging.”

Next year more schools will join the tournament as the Dar Academy says it will organise the tournament on an annual basis.

Andrew, head master of Aitchison School, who was present at the National Hockey Stadium, said that his school was considering a plan to lay down Astroturf on its grounds to give a better opportunity to its students to play the game.

He said Pakistan had enjoyed a good name in the game of hockey in the past and likewise the Atchison College would produce a good number of hockey players to the national team.

Crescent School wonthe tournament beating Atchison team 2-0.

The last week, the SBP held one-day trials for 17 sports to pick up its men’s and women’s teams for the participation in the Quaid-i-Azam Inter-Provincial Youth Games, which are being held in Islamabad, under the umbrella of the Pakistan Sports Board from Dec 25 to 29. Soon after the selection, the SBP coaches set up training camps at different venues to prepare teams for the gala, where the province has to defend its title. After a long time, such sports gala is being held in Pakistan.

Trials were for these team: athletics for men and women (M&W), hockey (M&W), football (M&W), badminton (M&W), baseball (M&W), tennis (M&W), taekwondo (M&W), kabaddi (M), judo (M&W), karate (M&W), boxing (M), squash (M&W), volleyball (M&W), netball (M&W), snooker (M), and wushu (W). Besides Punjab, the contingents of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Azad Kashmir, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), Gilgat-Baltistan and Islamabad will participate in the event.

In the last edition, Punjab won the games in a clear way. Its contingent seized 2,641 points to lift the glittering trophy of the inaugural event held in 2016. Punjab teams earned 61 gold medals, 43 silver medals and 32 bronze medals to take a clear edge over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which could obtain 1,331 points to remain the second with 20 gold medals, 17 silver and 41 bronze medals. Sindh finished third with 1,285 points. Islamabad (897 points), Balochistan (799 points), Fata (380 points) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (182 points) remained unimpressive. It is a hard fact that Punjab is the main sports base of the country. In every national team, almost 80 per cent of the players come from Punjab, so, the responsibility of the province is far bigger than the other provinces to raise the standards of sports at national and international levels. If Pakistan is struggling in the sports arena, Punjab is more responsible for it. For the last 10 years, the government of Punjab failed to play any effective role as it could not come out with any comprehensive planning to produce international level players. Instead of producing the world class players, the provincial government has tried to promote its own agenda through sports, which has no national cause. There is a need that the Punjab government brings the stakeholders on one platform to finalise a comprehensive sports policy to move forward.

The rainy and overcast conditions in Lahore, which prevailed most of the last week, disturbed the some activities of the sports. The first three-day matches in the Bank of Punjab Polo Cup could not be played as per schedule. Local cricket matches were also postponed. However, for the last three days when the clouds parted and the sun came out, sports activities have also started. The final of the BoP Polo Cup is likely to be played as per programme on Sunday.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2017