ISLAMABAD
The players’ revolt forced the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) to postpone trial matches for the selection of squad for the World Team Squash Championship starting from June 9 in France.
The inside sources have confirmed to this scribe that five players including Sh Saqib, Tayyab Aslam, Mansoor Zaman, Farhan Zaman and Danish Atlas Khan have refused to appear in the second round of trial matches after hearing the news that Aamir Atlas, Farhan Mahboob and Nasir Iqbal were given exemption by the federation. They refused to take any further part in the trials as they were not ready to play for only one available slot in the four-member team.
The sources said the players were of the view that if these three players were given exemption then what was the need of holding the drama of trials? “We have prepared hard and after tough matches, we booked our places for the next round. The PSF should have at least informed us that the trial matches are for just one slot so that we should better stay at home as there is absolutely no point in playing 30 trial matches and at the end of the day, we are told the entire process is for only one place. It is a great injustice to all of us.”
The sources said that it was the sheer negligence and irresponsibility shown by the federation as they completely failed to handle the entire situation. Instead of announcing trial matches, they should have gone with their best team, as every other participating nation in this prestigious event would bring its best team.
“The federation seems totally confused and now they are in a fix. If they want to exempt senior players then juniors will revolt and if they listen to juniors, the seniors will turn their back to the federation. So the PSF is facing a dilemma to control the damage. Had they used the common sense and gone by the set rules which were being used in the past, the situation could have been changed,” the sources added.
They urged SVP Syed Razi Nawab to immediately interfere in this matter and arrange a meeting with the senior players to resolve the situation going fast out of the hands of the PSF, otherwise, it will be too late to control the damages.
When contacted PSF secretary Abdul Wahab Marwat, he said: “It was the executive decision to organise trial matches for the selection of Pakistan squash team, however, due to some fitness related problems to some of our players, the subject trials have been postponed till May 18.”
It is pertinent to mention here that these are just lame excuses as the secretary tries to hush up the actual situation while the reality is far different from the perspective presented by him.