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India-Pakistan hockey series to be revived

The hockey federations of India and Pakistan have agreed to revive sporting links between the two countries in early 1998.

In a meeting between IHF president K P S Gill and Pakistan Hockey Federation boss Chaudhary Aktar Rasool, it was decided that a series of eight Tests, four each in India and Pakistan, will be played beginning third week of February 1998, and ending in the second week of March.

In Pakistan, the tests will be played in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Peshawar. In India, the venues will be New Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Amritsar.

Some details - such as the precise dates, and also whether the series will begin in India or Pakistan -- remain to be worked out.

Rasool has also proposed a double league system, which involves the senior sides and also the Under-21s and A teams, all playing in one competition. Gill for his part has agreed to the proposal, adding that the senior sides should play between themselves and the juniors could play in parallell.

Both hockey bosses agreed that the revival of the Indo-Pak series would go a long way to improving the standard of the game in both countries.

UNI