Dutch veterans conclude Lahore tour

Lahore: The Flying Dutch Hockey team in its last encounter . The Punjab stalwarts were leading the match 5-3 at half time but in the second half the visitors were more attacking and played with much great coordination while the Pakistan players displayed the skills of the yesteryear but they remained off target when the time of finishing came in the match.

Gys Wetering was the star of the visiting team, who came up to his promise of scoring four goals while Gerd Scuiatmann, Mark Kleysen and Wouter Ven Pelt shared one goal each in the win. While from the Pakistan side, Nadeem ND came up with three goals and Saleem Sherwani and Rana Mujahid hit the board once each.

The Dutch veteran team was on a tour of Lahore on the invitation of the Tauqir Dar, president of the Dar Hockey Academy and was supported by Sports Board Punjab while the matches were conducted as part of the Punjab International Sports Festival.

The visiting team played its opening match against Aitchison College team and the match remained two-all while their second match against Dar Academy young guns ended in favour of the visitors 5-4.
Later, the teams were introduced with the chief minister, who gave the gold and silver medals to the Dutch and Pakistan veterans. Mian Shahbaz welcomed the Dutch players in Pakistan and also praised the standard of Johar Stadium where he said a number of international matches are being now played on a regular basis.

“The promise of providing sports infrastructure in the province will be fulfilled by the Punjab government and the establishment of the Johar Hockey Stadium is part of the chain of promise,” he added.
Also present on the occasion were Khawaja Zakauddin, Shahbaz Senior, Dr Tariq Aziz, Qamar Ibrahim, Kamran Ashraf, Sohail Ashraf, Mohammad Khalid, Asif Ahmed while the former players who represent the Punjab veterans include Manzoor Senior, Khalid Bashir, Saleem Sherwani, Anjum Saeed, Saleem Akhtar, Tahir Zaman, Shahid Ali Khan, Danish Kaleem, Shafqat Malik, Masoodur Kalim, Asif Abbas, Naeem AKhtar, Nadeem ND, Khawaja JUnaid, Qasim Khan, Mohammad Ali.