Pakistan was once known in the world of squash for its long list of champions. Today it is known for sending overage players to international tournaments.

PSF overlookS the fact, compromising the reputation of our country. The squash authorities fear that exclusion of overage players would create a huge gap in Pakistan’s junior squash and the authorities will have to wait for long to see laurels coming to Pakistan.

This can be gauged by the fact that our juniors win a number of events at the international level, but they fail in the seniors’ tournaments, especially PSA events.

The reason is that being overage they don’t get to face tough competition at that level but when they appear in professional squash contests, they simply fail.

Local squash fraternity feels that having big prize money in junior events is also conducive for this age deception by players. This overage problem was first highlighted by legendary Jansher Khan in 2004 when he claimed that the national junior team players were overage and could not win the World Junior Championship that year.

Sajid Waheed, then PSF secretary, rejected the claims and stated that all the players in the national team had undergone wrist, elbow and collar bone tests to determine their real ages while their passports and forms B were further proof that they were not overage.

The team’s coach Rehmat Khan stated that Jansher had made similar allegations days before the 2003 World Junior Championship in Chennai but Pakistan won that event — for the first time in 20 years.

The international squash fraternity has also been criticising Pakistan on this issue. Malcolm Willstrop, the father of former world number one James Willstrop and a coach for over 50 years, lambasted Pakistan over this issue. The Malaysian squash community has also expressed its disapproval.

Former Secretary General Asian Squash Federation (ASF) K Sivanesen once felt the need to come himself to see an international junior championship (the DG Rangers Squash championship) held in Karachi lest any overage player should get entry.

This issue has also been hurting the national squash circuit for a long time. In 2012, a national level event in Rawalpindi got postponed because of a dispute between provincial associations over overage players.

Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa squash authorities often accuse each other of including overage players in their teams during national junior events.

The same year, the teams of Punjab and Sindh pulled out of a national junior event held in KP protesting against “favourable draws and overage players”.

The conflict was over the participation of a player in the under-11 category who should have been playing in the under-17 category but the organisers did not disqualify him despite protest by his opponent and the Punjab and Sindh squash associations.

After facing huge criticism from the international community, PSF conducted age scrutiny of more than two hundred players in 2012-13. It was done manually, but without any major reports of wrong decisions.

The then PSF Secretary Abdul Wahab Marwat informed me that the federation found 180 boys over-age in that age scrutiny campaign.

The same year, the executive committee of PSF formed a committee to medically examine players in order to resolve the issue of overage players appearing in national junior events.

At the same time, provincial squash associations started conducting age tests on their own. Secretary Punjab Squash Association Rana Tariq informed The News that they had started conducting medical examinations for their 100 registered junior players in order to set things right.

But this good initiative could not create any impact as the sub-committee comprising secretaries of provincial associations and the federation, formed by the Executive Committee of PSF to resolve this issue stated they would not accept medical scrutiny of any player if it was not conducted under its supervision.

This stalemate continued till 2016 when the World Squash Federation asked Pakistan team to undergo age tests after it had won the World Junior Championship. This was another wakeup call for PSF and then they made some serious efforts by conducting bone tests of 47 junior players at the radiology department of Army Medical College to categorise players according to their real ages.

British qualified doctors conducted these tests and this was made a standard for all junior players wishing to represent Pakistan.

The federation did not allow any overage players in the national circuit after the 2016 issue and kept a strict check on age categories.

However, the said standard procedure was abandoned soon afterwards by the new management of PSF and the players were once again allowed to take part in national and international events on the basis of their dates of birth as per their passports and Forms B.

Now, the federation in its last Annual General Meeting once again has 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. Let’s see if this formula works.