ISLAMABAD – The 13th seed Ali Murad and Palwasha Bashir both from National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) won the male and female singles titles of the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Badminton Championship here at Rodham Hall, Pakistan Sports Board.

Ali Murad also scored upset win in the men’s singles event against second seed Rizwan Azam 21-11 and 21-03. It was the first major title of Ali Murad’s career. Hot and humid conditions were to blame for most of players getting out of steam as the Rodham Hall, where the championship is being played is not suitable for such a high profile event.
There were no air conditioners in the hall, and the administration never bothered to at least use exhaust fans. The hall was filled with spectators and players while playing under such heat and humidity was almost impossible.
An inside source on condition of anonymity told this correspondent lights of the Rodham Hall went off with big explosion yesterday and no play was possible as the admin of the hall failed to respond and the over night matches were played at Hamidi Hall.
Despite having two Director Generals the performance of Pakistan Sports Board is going from bad to worse. The PSB admin has completely flopped in utilizing world-class services available at PSB. The mismanagement is order of the day in PSB despite lodging several complaints with PSB high command from players and coaches nothing had been done in practical to give some kind of relief to players.
Pakistan Badminton Federation President Nazar M Gondal was the chief guest on the concluding ceremony, but like the inaugural ceremony, where he was supposed to come at 11am, he came at 7pm, and on the concluding ceremony Gondal was scheduled to arrive at 5pm, but he didn’t bother to come till 7pm and organisers and large presence of media persons were left fuming in hot and humid conditions of Rodham Hall.
Earlier, in the women’s singles final, Palwashan Bashir of NBP thrashed Sidra Hameed 2-0 to lift the title. Palwashan had to toil hard in the first game, as she was downed 3-10 at once stage, but she fought gallantly and squared the game at 18-18. In the second game, Palwasha did not allow her opponent to settle down and played excellent strokes and won the game 21-4. Top national umpire Amjad Siddiqui supervised the final.