Pakistan's squash heroes are playing on their own money

Starting from a broken racket in a small village

The episode opens with Farhan Mehboob describing the conditions in which he first picked up a squash racket. He grew up in a small village — Namak Ali New Village, as he names it — from a family that was not wealthy. His father owned one motorcycle. Farhan and his brother would ride it together to and from the squash court, then ride it back. There was no money for new equipment.

His father’s response to requests for a new racket was deliberate, not neglectful. “Your uncle started with a torn racket,” his father told him. “You will do the same.” When Farhan cried and pressed for better gear, his father laid out the logic plainly: if he bought one racket today, tomorrow the demand would be for two, then three. Instead, he told Farhan to earn it. “Look,” he said, “if you play well at the Under-15 level, sponsorships will come to you automatically.” And they did. The moment Farhan won his first junior title, an English club offered him a complete six-month sponsorship. He describes lying awake that night, checking each piece of kit one by one, photographing the racket — because before that moment, he had nothing.

Muzamil draws out the texture of that early period carefully, and Farhan is precise about what it produced in him: an understanding of the difference between something earned and something handed over. “What you get through shortcuts,” he says, “and what you get through hard work — the difference is enormous.”

Beating a future world champion in the quarter-finals

Farhan’s first international tournament was in 2015. He describes arriving at the court for his first match and discovering that his opponent in the quarter-finals was a player who would go on to win the World Junior Championship — a name, he says, that carries the same weight in squash as Jahangir Khan or Jansher Khan. The player had been winning continuously for five years.

The night before the match, Farhan could not sleep. He was sweating through the night. A friend tried to calm him: “Farhan, don’t be afraid. You play well. The pressure is bigger than the player.” He did not fully believe it. But when the match started, a long rally developed. One point would decide the game. He won it. He won the match.

“When I won, I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I looked around — I looked up, I looked at the crowd — and my driver said, ‘Yes, you won.’” He got off the court and started dancing. “Whether I win or lose after this, I have beaten a player who won continuously for five years. For the first time in twelve years, a Pakistani beat him in that tournament.”

Muzamil lets the moment sit. It is the clearest illustration in the conversation of what Farhan is capable of — and what Pakistan has largely failed to build on.

The federation, the courts, and the politics

The courts where squash is played in Pakistan are not public. They belong to the Air Force, the Navy, and the Army. The federation’s president is the Air Chief Marshal. The Vice Chief is the Senior Vice President. This structure, Farhan explains, means that when political pressure is applied against a player, the courts simply close.

He describes a period when he was effectively banned — not just from domestic competition but from international travel. The ban was not based on performance. It was based on the fact that he had refused to step aside for players connected to powerful families within the federation. “They would call ahead,” he says. “When we are playing, don’t let anyone in. After we finish, then let them go.” Doors were blocked. Phones were made. He was locked out of government courts and had to pay membership fees at a private club just to keep training.

When the club manager found out who was paying to use his courts, he was furious — not at Farhan, but at the situation. “A player like you is paying to play here?” he said. “I would burn this place down before I let that happen.” He waived the fees immediately.

The ban was eventually lifted, but only after Farhan continued performing. He won the Under-30 National Championship. He won again. He kept winning. Eventually, Air Chief Marshal Taimur — then president of the federation — called him in. Farhan describes sitting in the office, crying. The Air Chief Marshal told him: “From today, whatever you ask for, I will give it. Just keep playing.”

The South Asian Games gold and the world ranking

Farhan’s competitive record, as he describes it to Muzamil, includes multiple national titles, a South Asian Games gold medal, participation in eighteen international tournaments across the United States, England, and Kuwait, and a world ranking. He also received the President’s Pride of Performance Award — one of Pakistan’s highest civilian honours for athletes, and one he notes came to him at a young age.

He is careful to explain how world rankings work in squash: you accumulate points by competing in international tournaments, and the prize money from those tournaments feeds directly into your ranking. To maintain and improve a ranking, a player must keep travelling, keep competing, keep spending. There is no government fund for this. There is no federation budget. There is only the player’s own money.

“I still go to some tournaments on my own money,” he says. “I pay my own costs.” He asks Muzamil to imagine telling a cricketer to fund his own tour. The comparison is not rhetorical — it is the precise gap he is describing.

What Pakistan’s squash players who left the country are doing now

Some Pakistani squash players, Farhan explains, eventually understood that the system at home would not support them. They left. Some now represent the United States. Some represent Armenia. Some represent Russia. The countries that took them in recognised the talent, gave it structure, and those players now rank higher than players who stayed in Pakistan.

“They gave those players so much respect,” Farhan says, “that today they sit above some of our players in the rankings.” He is not angry at the players who left. He is angry at the system that made leaving the rational choice.

He also describes Pakistani coaches who are now based abroad — in Canada with Jonathan Power, in China, in Australia. The expertise that Pakistan produced over decades of squash dominance is now scattered across the world, coaching other countries’ players, because Pakistan did not create conditions to keep it.

The Indian player earning four crore rupees a year

Later in the discussion, Farhan recounts a dinner conversation at an Asian Championship with an Indian squash player — a player he has never lost to, he notes, in their head-to-head record. He asked the Indian player how much he earned in a year from squash. The answer: four crore rupees. Farhan took a long breath. “Four crore. In one year.” He asked how. The answer was sponsorships — Tata, and others.

India, Farhan explains, built a sports infrastructure that treats athletes as commercial assets. Sponsors invest because the ecosystem makes investment rational. Players earn because the system is designed to produce earnings. Pakistan has not done this. “No one in Pakistan has given me anything close to that,” he says.

He is not asking for four crore rupees. He is asking for the logic that produces it — the recognition that a world-ranked player with a South Asian Games gold medal and a President’s Award is a commercial asset, not a charity case.

The city-vs-city league idea

By the end of the conversation, Farhan has moved from grievance to proposal. He describes, in detail, an idea he says he has raised many times on large platforms without result: a city-versus-city squash league, structured the way cricket’s domestic leagues are structured.

Each city sends its top players — four male, four female. They compete. The best player from each city advances. A national champion is identified. Businesses sponsor teams. People in each city develop a stake in their local team. “I’m telling you,” he says to Muzamil, “village by village, this sport’s name will spread.”

He argues that the commercial logic is self-sustaining once it starts. Sponsors come because there is an audience. An audience comes because there is local identity attached to the competition. Players get paid because sponsors are paying. The government does not need to fund it — the private sector will, once someone builds the initial structure.

“Someone just needs to take a TV channel or a media group and start this,” he says. “The competition will begin on its own.”

Honoring heroes, or not

The episode’s title — “How Can We Honor Our Heroes?” — is not answered with a policy paper. It is answered with Farhan Mehboob’s life. He trained from age six. He woke at four in the morning. He trained twice a day. He beat future world champions. He won a South Asian Games gold medal. He received the President’s Pride of Performance Award. He has trophies he cannot fit in his house and Pakistan colours he cannot find space for.

“I have no space for my trophies,” he says. “I have no space for my Pakistan colours. I keep winning them. But where do I put them? And what credit do I get? Zero.”

Muzamil asks, near the end, what the audience can do. Farhan’s answer is direct: talk about it. Share it. Push universities, colleges, and schools to include squash. Demand that media cover sports beyond cricket. Recognise that Pakistan has more than twenty squash world titles — more than cricket’s World Cup count — and ask why that fact is not common knowledge.

“I am not speaking only for myself,” Farhan says. “I am speaking for every player who is struggling. If this is my situation, imagine theirs.”

He thanks Muzamil not for the platform, but for the amplification — for being the kind of person who brings a player’s voice to people who might otherwise never hear it. “You are a means,” he says. “And that is what is needed.”