t was 2012 when the World Squash Federation asked Pakistani players participating in the World Juniors Championship to undergo medical tests to determine their real ages. It did not happen and WSF refused to allow Danish Atlas Khan to play the team championship during the event. Pakistan Squash Federation sent another player in his replacement and Danish came back home after playing only the individual event.

In 2016, Pakistan’s whole squad had to undergo age verification tests after winning the World Junior Team Championship, and the PSF got them cleared from Sri Lanka’s testing lab.

In 2023, Hamza Khan was accused of misstating his age by his opponent from Egypt in the final of World Junior Individual Championships. Hamza however got cleared by WSF without any age verification test.

These incidents prove that Pakistan’s squash has not recovered from this age cheating menace and it is still very much part of our squash culture.

It’s not that PSF did not go for age verifications of local players. They did in fact conduct age tests many times but never implemented restrictions (or policies) on the basis of age tests’ results.

After the 2012 Danish Atlas incident, the PSF conducted age scrutiny of almost all junior players of the country in three phases and found 14 players of under-11 category, 18 players for under-13 category, 22 players were over-age in under-15 category, 34 in under-17, and 31 players in the under-19 category overage.

Then after a few years of the 2016 debacle (when World Squash Federation asked Pakistan’s winning team to undergo age tests) the then Director Academies of PSF Aftab Sadiq Qureshi took charge to streamline the national junior circuit.

He was instrumental in conducting the bone tests of 47 junior players from the radiology department of Army Medical College in early 2021 to categorise players according to their real ages.

Aftab then told me that British qualified doctors conducted those tests and that was introduced as a set standard for all junior players wishing to represent Pakistan at national and international level.

But last year this overage issue re-emerged when Punjab Squash Association raised objections over the ages of a number of junior players from PAF Academy and wrote a letter to PSF in this regard.

The PSA letter stated that a number of players from the PAF Squash Academy were "overage" for the under-13 category at a junior event in Rawalpindi and then the same players soon after entered their names in the Mubah All Pakistan Junior Squash Tournament held in Lahore.

Later, it was found that the new PSF administration had annulled the standard procedure introduced by Aftab in 2021 and went back to the old flawed methods of age verification by relying on the dates of birth in the form B and passports of players.

This was confirmed when the PSF informed the participants of Quaid-E-Azam PSA Closed Satellite Squash Championship held in Islamabad last year that players’ age would be verified during attendance through NADRA Form-B and NADRA birth certificate.

“All players must be in possession of their original Form-B/Birth Certificate at the time of attendance,” stated PSF in an email to all of its affiliated units.

Besides, PSF informed the participants that “If anybody [players or parents] raises an objection on the age of other players, an amount of Rs 20,000/- has to be paid to PSF in advance for the arrangement of medical test and service charges of the concerned player. No on-spot objection would be accepted for age verification”.

This was quite shocking to the local squash fraternity and players that if they raised objections on the ages of their opponents they themselves had to pay a hefty amount for the age tests of their opponents.

Interestingly, Aftab told me that the age tests conducted in 2021 from CMH Rawalpindi did not cost much and in fact they were quite cheap as the cost of one test at that time was just one thousand rupees.

Thus, PSF asking for 20 thousand rupees for one age test was simply an act of injustice to poor local players. However, the said closed satellite event was not the only example of allowing overage players in the event.

In August last year, a number of overage players were allowed by PSF to play the 1st Asian Junior Squash Championship held in Islamabad in violation of medical age tests of players conducted in 2021.

As per the results of the tests, Usman Nadeem, Mehmood Mehboob, Ashar Butt, Anas Ali Shah, Azan Khalil, and Varun Asif were overage for under-19 and under-17 categories but they were allowed to play this championship.

Then in the Annual General Meeting of PSF decided that provincial squash associations will be responsible for verifying ages of their players through bone tests.

During the meeting, Vice President PSF Adnan Asad suggested that all checks related to age including bone tests, birth certificates and school certificates must be the responsibility of associations.

Also, the federation decided that for international events ages of players may be verified by PSF, prior to departure, from a recognised lab while age of any registered player may be verified by PSF when deemed appropriate on a case to case basis.

The story does not end here. PSF has been unable to deal with this menace for a long time and overage players are still taking part in national and international events due to the absence and strict implementation of policies.

The role of WSF is also disappointing in this regard as it never took any stern action against PSF. The WSF did not in fact impose any restrictions on Pakistan despite the above mentioned three incidents.