ISLAMABAD- Pakistan Tenpin Bowling Federation (PTBF) secretary Ijaz Ur Rehman has taken a good initiative to facilitate the players by establishing a self-financed bowling club in Capital.
In an interview with The Nation on Tuesday Ijaz said he had been knocking at the doors of high-ups to allocate a piece of land where we could construct an international standard bowling club for the last 12 years, but no one listened my request and finally I sold my land and house and started constructing a world class 12 lane bowling alley at Jinnah Super market covering28000 square feet.
“I had signed agreement with China for the purchase of equipment, which would arrive till October this year and we would inaugurate the club and with that my lifelong dream would be materialised.” Ijaz said soon after the completion of bowling club, the federation would establish an academy in Islamabad, where international coaches services would be hired to impart training to our grass roots level talent.
Ijaz said Pakistan Bowling team had recently participated in fourth Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Korea, where they finished 19th out of 45 participating nations, which was a good showing considering the scarcity of resources available to players in Pakistan. “We don't have our own bowling alley and we had to play at Islamabad Megazone Bowling Club at outdated lanes and without any coaching. Despite that our team consisting myself, M Hussain Chahtha and Shabbir Lashkar performed in the event which was a very good learning experience for us.” Ijaz said the federation had requested PSB to sanction grants for our players for participation in different international events on number of occasions but all our requests fell on deaf years and the PSB never bothered to help out bowling team.
Ijaz said: “We had sent a written proposal to DG PSB?Syed Amir Hamza Gilani in this regard but despite making several promises of launching the joint venture, nothing could be done in this regard.” Ijaz alleged that the PSB had wasted almost Rs100million on bogus National Games which were a total flop and when ex-joint secretary IPC Abdul Ghaffar Khan took notice of irregularities, this powerful mafia managed to transfer him just to hide their misdeeds.
Ijaz said the PSB and POA interim committee would be responsible of inviting IOC?ban on Pakistan as they were ignoring the IOC instructions. He said he had complete documentary proof of embezzlements in the PSB and requested Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to initiate an inquiry, as sports were completely destroyed during the last few years. He also appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice M Iftikhar Chaudhry to take suo moto action on sorry state of affairs of the PSB.