APP
PESHAWAR
Left winger Kiran, son of former Pakistan team skipper Col. Nouman Khan, guided Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Red to a 2-1 victory over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa White in the football final part of the Under-16 Games played here at historical Tehmas Khan Football Stadium on Thursday.
Additional Secretary Sports Junaid Khan, Director Youth Saleem Jan Marwat, Additional Secretary Finance Asif Shahab, Director General Sports KP Asfandyar Khan Khattak, former Pakistan team skippers Col. Nouman, Basit Kamal, Aajiz Shakoor, Qazi Muhammad Asif, Arshad Khan, Director Games Zakir Ullah, coaches Faisal Javed and Abdur Shakoor were also present.
The match between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Red and White at Tahmas Khan Football Ground started on a fast tempo and both the teams forwards made some good rallies of attacks. Capacity crowd present on this occasion also witnessed the match. It was in the 15th minute when Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Red took the lead through promising Kinan Khan on the field attempt. It was his 7th goal overall. Kinan is the son of former Pakistan team skipper Col. (retd) Nouman Khan.
Kinan Khan got a free ball from his mid-fielder Haroon Khan and zoomed quickly by slamming in a beautiful goal to make the tally 1-0. After taking lead, the front-line of KP Red including Kamil Khan, Jawad Khan, Abdul Rafi and nice goal-keeping Junaid Khan played well and with combined team efforts scored another goal when unmarked Kamil Khan doubled the lead through a field attempt.
When taking 2-0 lead, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who recorded victory against Balochistan on penalty kicks in the second semi-final by 4-3, managed their position and made some good rallies of attacks.
At the end of the first session Khyber Red, who registered victory against Punjab in the first semi-final at 3-2 in a thrilling and fight battle, was leading by 2-0.
It was the second session in which Khyber Pakhtunkhwa White made some good goal-fetching inroads and succeeded in reducing the margin through center striker Mehran on the field attempt. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Red goal-keeper Junaid played well and did not allow further by thwarting some good moves of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa White.
The front-line of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Red including Sudais, Mehran, Bilal, Umar Alam and deep defenders Abdul Razaq and Junaid Khan played well with their goal-keeper Saqib but failed to level the tally and thus Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Red won the match by 2-1. FIFA Referee Ikram along with Shakeel and Zeeshan supervised the match while Imtiaz Ali Shah acted as match referee.
At the end, Additional Secretary Sports Junaid Khan said that the Sports Department is taking all possible steps for the promotion of sports in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and to bring talent to the forefront at the grass root level, an Under-16 Talent Hunt program has been organized in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, followed by U16 Games in seven male and four female Games.
Selection has been made in all 35 districts including merged areas, he informed. He said now the talent at grassroots level the best players were selected and trained under the qualified coaches and out of them, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa team was selected who made a name for across the country. He said through their talent and best performances in the National Junior Games, such talented players would be given more opportunities of representing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in different Games. He also announced Rs. 100,000 cash prize for each team. Director Youth Saleem Jan Marwat also announced Rs. 50,000 for the teams on their excellent performance by beating Punjab and Balochistan in their respective semi-finals.
