The Pakistanis have risked an early elimination from the 23rd World Team Championships to be played in Paderborn from Aug. 21-27 after overlooking the country’s top two players in a controversial manner.

Aamir Atlas Khan and Farhan Mehboob — the only two Pakistanis left in the top-50 world rankings — have been ignored by the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) as it has mostly picked rookie players to represent the country in the World Championships.

Neither of the Pakistan team players is placed in the top 100 world rankings. It is a sad situation for Pakistan, which used to have five to six of their players in the top 10 world rankings till the eighties.

Pakistan No. 1 Aamir Atlas Khan is ranked at No. 28th while Farhan Mehboob is ranked at No. 36 in the international circuit.

But they have no place in Pakistan’s Germany-bound squad, which includes Yasir Butt, Waqar Mehboob, Nasir Iqbal and Hamzah Bokhari. Yasir will spearhead Pakistan in Germany as he is the top-ranked player in the team. Yasir is ranked No. 105 in the world rankings with Waqar at 138, Nasir at 161 and Hamzah at 199.

Because of their players’ low rankings, Pakistan will enter the World Championships as an unseeded team for the first time in the history of the prestigious event.

The reason why the PSF chose to overlook Aamir and Farhan – the only two Pakistanis left in the top-50 world rankings – seem controversial.

Aamir is still serving a six-month ban, which was implemented early this year after the youngster had a spat with Jansher Khan, Pakistan’s national coach, in a television program. Aamir’s ban expires on July 15 while the deadline for submission of teams for the World Championships is July 25. However, the PSF decided against waiting for Aamir’s ban period to end before naming Pakistan’s squad.

Farhan was ignored after he lost to Yasir Butt in the national trials. However, Farhan has claimed that the PSF didn’t give him enough time to recover as he was asked to appear in the trials soon after his return from Kuwait where he played in an international tournament.

“I requested the PSF to give me some time to recover but they refused to listen,” Farhan told Arab News. “I was completely drained after playing in an international tournament in Kuwait which is why I was unable to give my best in the trials. Under normal circumstances I would have beaten Yasir,” he stressed.

Pakistan have won the World Championship six times but their last title came way back in 1993 when legends Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan joined hand to lead the Pakistanis to a memorable triumph on home soil in Karachi.

In the previous edition held two years ago, Pakistan edged out South Africa 2-1 in a play-off to finish fifth – their best showing in the championship since 1995 when they reached the final in Egypt.