India’s rise in squash worries Pakistan

KARACHI: India has shown some incredible strength in squash as its player Saurav Ghosal has been ranked World No 10 this month, which left Pakistani squash fraternity in shock.

It also triggered a debate on social media about the downfall of Pakistani squash as the top Pakistani player’s ranking is 55. The 49th position is also occupied by an Indian, which means India, nowhere in squash a few years ago, has left Pakistan far behind.

Pakistani squash fraternity is not happy with the coaching system of Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF). Ghulam Farooq Butt started the debate by pointing out that there were two Indians in the world’s top 50, while no Pakistani was in top 50.

Tariq Mehmood said that PSF should take realistic steps. Tahir Iqbal Khan, a former player and now coach, said: “We should form a special system for squash and also PSF should have qualified and educated coaches.”

Farhan Ahmad seconded his suggestion. Kashif Javed Gill said: “A strong and transparent development programme at grassroots level is what we need. And we don’t need any legendary coaches to train at that level.

“Qualification is the most important thing for a coach but sadly our system doesn’t believe in it. I have seen players like Nick Matthew and James Willstrop doing level-3 coaching courses.

“What is our criterion to hire a coach at junior level?” he asked. Jan Khan said having players based outside Pakistan was the only way forward. “We need to hire Pervaiz Saeed Mir for high-quality training,” he said and added that the man knew everything about fitness.

“It’s the game of attention. One coach can only focus on one or two players, not 15 players. That will be just waste of time,” said Jan. Yawar Islam, a level-I ASF coach, said: “One of our biggest problems is overage players, and then either it’s under training or over training.

“Because of these three problems, most of our players give up in their early 20s and start looking for careers in coaching (abroad),” said Yawar. Tahir Iqbal Khan seconded his opinion and stated that most of the professional players were motivated to play squash only as a job, aiming to earn money.

However, Secretary Sindh Squash Association (SSA) Amir Khan slightly differed on this issue and said that ranking did not matter. He said Tayyab had been in top 50 many times but the real thing was to win international events outside Pakistan.

“Our players are not capable of winning any top PSA event due to poor system and poor coaching, and similarly our coaches are not competent enough to transform junior players into champions,” he said.