The final of the Azadi Cup Hockey Tournament will be played today AT 6;00 PM between Pakistan WAPDA and Mari Petroleum at Nadeem Hockey Stadium, Rawalpindi. In the first semi-final match , WAPDA defeated Navy and Mari Petroleum Army Colors. Pakistan WAPDA won the match by 5 goals to 2 goals and booked their place in the final match.
On behalf of Pakistan Wapda, Ijaz Ahmed scored 2 goals, Ruman Khan, Hanan Shahid and Owais Arshad scored one goal each while Ehsanullah and Basharat scored one goal each on behalf of Pakistan Navy.
In this match, Haroon Rashid International and Irfan Tahir performed the umpiring duties along with Fahad Ali Khan as the reserve umpire. Akhtar Ali, Naveed Ahmed and Yasir Lodhi acted as judges along with technical officer Rafiqur Rahman. The decision was made on penalty shoot outs. In the penalty shoot-outs, the army colors team could only score one goal against the 4 goals of Mari Petroleum and thus overall, Mari Petroleum won the match by 6 goals to 3 and booked their place in the final match. On behalf of Mari Petroleum, Arbaaz Ahmed scored 2 goals while Arshad, Umeer, Abdullah and Ehtisham scored one goal each. Shahbaz scored 2 goals and Rizwan senior scored one goal on behalf of Pakistan Army. Yasir Khurshid International and Ameer Hamza performed the umpiring duties and Asad Abbas was the reserve umpire. Technical Officer Murtaza Bhatti along with Asif Baig, Tariq Butt, and Hamza Tufail performed the responsibilities of the judges well.
On this occasion, Secretary General Pakistan Hockey Federation Syed Haider Hussain, Tournament Director Olympian Nasir Ali, Olympian Shahnaz Sheikh, Tournament Organizing Secretary Colonel Muhammad Yameen, Assistant Tournament Director Major Tariq Wark, Assistant Tournament Director Raja Shuja Iqbal, Empires Manager Zulfiqar Hussain, Assistant Empires Manager Kamran Shah, Assistant Empires Manager Mubarak Ali, Event Media Coordinator Zulfiqar Baig, Assistant Media Coordinator Muhammad Hafeez, Haji Naeem and their team along with a large number of hockey fans were present in the stadium.
