ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Sports Board has finalised a 61-member contingent for this year’s Commonwealth Games, sidelining the four-strong badminton team.

The Games are set to be held in Birmingham from July 28 to Aug 8 and the PSB has finalised a list of 42 athletes and 19 officials across 10 sporting disciplines.

PSB director general retired Col Asif Zaman confirmed that the finalised list had been sent to the Pakistan Olympic Association for the Games.

“We will finance the finalised contingent only,” Asif told Dawn on Friday. “Now it is up to the POA. If they want to add to it, they can but they will have to bear the expenses.”

Shuttler Mahoor Shahzad, who represented Pakistan at the Olympics last year, criticised the PSB for not including the badminton team on Twitter on Friday.

“With utmost anguish I have to inform you all that Pakistan Badminton Team selected for Commonwealth Games 2022 has been dropped by Pakistan Sports Board (PSB). It’s quite unfair on the part of PSB to isolate the only sport at the very last moment when everything was finalised,” she tweeted.

According to that list, Pakistan will have three male representatives each in athletics, boxing and weightlifting.

Javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem will headline the track and field team while the weightlifters have been included despite the Pakistan Weightlifting Federation having been suspended by PSB for a number of doping cases.

There will also be six wrestlers, two squash players and two judokas. One swimmer and one table tennis player have also been included in the list. The hockey squad will comprise 18 members.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2022