From The International News, Pakistan
KARACHI: Asian Squash Federation (ASF) has directed Pakistan squash authorities to share with them the results of age scrutiny of junior players, so that they could be ranked according to their correct age categories.
Responding to a query of ‘The News’, Secretary General ASF Duncan Chiu said, “We would like to request the PSF to provide us with such a list at the soonest for revising the Asian Junior rankings where applicable.”
The ASF considers the date of births of players printed in their passports to categorise them.
The World Squash Federation (WSF) and the ASF had directed Pakistan officials to conduct age scrutiny of their players after receiving many complaints that most of Pakistani junior players were over-age for their categories.
The PSF conducted age scrutiny of almost all junior players of the country in three phases: first in June last year at Islamabad, where 14 players of under-11 category were found overage; 18 players for under-13; 22 players were overage in under-15 category; 34 in under-17; and 31 in under-19.
In the second phase of the scrutiny held in October last year in Karachi before DG Rangers Squash Junior Championship PSF found 14 players overage in the category of under-11; as many players were found overage in the category of under-13; six in under-15; the under-17 category had one player overage; and there were four overage players in the category of under-19.
The third phase was conducted in Peshawar in March this year, where 25 junior players were scrutinised and five players had their age category shifted.
But the PSF has not shared the list of scrutinised players with the ASF, which has made rankings of players in Asia quite erroneous.
For example a number of players were ranked by ASF in the categories according to their passport dates of births, although they had been moved to the next category by the PSF after the scrutiny.
“We have only taken up the ASF Secretariat for a few months that we are not aware of the mentioned age scrutiny conducted by PSF,” added Duncan. “We also have not been provided with the scrutinised list from neither the WSF nor the previous ASF Secretariat.”
He said that the Asian Junior Rankings were compiled based on the AJSS event results of which all the players’ entries should have been endorsed by the participating MNAs confirming that all the players’ information were true and updated. “We anticipate that for all future events the endorsement procedure by all MNAs will be properly administered,” he added.
According to details taken from Asian Junior players rankings of ASF released on June 1, nine players of Pakistan placed in the category of under-17 by ASF have already been considered overage for this category by the PSF and they are now playing in the under-19 category.
The names of those players are Israr Ahmed, Asim Khan, Khurrum Maaz, Omer Allaudin, Abbas Shoukat, Danish Waheed, Anas Ghazanfar, Ejaz Ahmed, and Zulfiqar Ali.
Hammas Tarar ranked first in the under-13 category by the ASF has also been moved to under-15 category by the PSF.
Besides, there are significant discrepancies in the dates of births mentioned by the ASF in the rankings and the ones PSF has allotted to players after their age scrutiny.