Snooker in Pakistan

Following in the footsteps of Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Sajjad, young Pakistan cueist Hamza Akbar gave further proof of the country’s strength in amateur snooker by winning the Asian Snooker Championship staged in Kuala Lumpur recently. Hamza is now the second Pakistan snooker player to have won the prestigious Asian title. Former world champion Mohammad Yousuf was the lone Pakistani before Hamza to have won the title back in 1998. The final was a pulsating affair and the 21-year-old had to fight every inch of the way before prevailing over his Indian counterpart — the seasoned Pankaj Advani — with a 7-6 frame score in the best-of-13 final.

Hamza’s win is another shot in the arm for the snooker federation, with the body having done really well for the promotion of the sport in the country in recent years. The president of the organisation, Alamgir Sheikh, and his team of officials must be lauded for their untiring efforts. The snooker federation has worked hard with the players and has also succeeded in garnering some sponsors for them. Quarterly ranking events organised by the federation offer decent prize money and although the stakes can definitely go higher, the fact remains that a solid niche for snooker has been created with scant government support. Asif, Sajjad and now Hamza are in line for a cash reward from the government although the former two have not, to date, received the rewards promised to them by both the Punjab chief minister and the prime minister. Despite the government apathy, the cueists continue to dazzle at both the Asian and world levels and while leading sports bodies in the country struggle to get foreign teams to visit, the snooker federation is all set to host the World Six Red and Team championships in Karachi later in the year. Two international tournaments have successfully been staged in Karachi in the recent past, and the federation is likely to succeed again this year. There is a lesson here for the country’s other sporting bodies as well in how to excel with limited resources at one’s disposal.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th,  2015.

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