JALANDHAR: With visa denials preventing their participation, the Pakistani flavour would be missing from the 26th Surjit Hockey Tournament starting on Saturday.
The tournament is organised every year by the Surjit Hockey Society, Jalandhar to keep the name of former Olympian late Sardar Surjit Singh Randhawa, former skipper of Indian Hockey Team, who lost his life in a fatal car accident near Jalandhar in 1984.
Surjit Hockey Society president Ajit Singh Pannu said last year’s Runners up Javed Hockey Club, Gojra (Pakistan) will not be seen in action during the tournament as the Government of India has not given a green signal to the Pakistani team so far.
Pannu said the tournament will be played on a league-cum-knockout basis on the recently newly laid polytan turf.
All types of arrangements like boarding and lodging, transport, security, medical etc have been completed.
Organising secretary Iqbal Singh Sandhu said all the teams have been divided into four pools and winner of each pool will qualify for the semi-finals, scheduled to be held on November 12.
Last year’s champion Punjab and Sind Bank Delhi, Border Security Force (BSF) Jalandhar and Indian Air Force (IAF) Delhi are in pool-‘A’, Air India, Mumbai, Namdhari-XI, Sirsa and Punjab National Bank (PNB) Delhi kept in pool-‘B’, Former Champion and star studded IndianOil Mumbai, Rail Coach factory (RCF) Kapurthala and EME Jalandhar placed in pool ‘C’ while Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPC) Mumbai, Punjab Police and Corps of Signals Jalandhar have been seeded in to pool ‘D’.