BANGALORE, May 12: The stage is set for the conduct of the Punjab and Sind Bank 58th Senior National Hockey Championship which will begin at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) complex at Kengeri, near here, on Wednesday.

Karnataka Sports Minister Ajay Kumar Sarnaik said that the engineers of Pro-M were expected to arrive here on Wednesday evening and the KSHA stadium at Akkithimmanahalli would be ready by May 20. He said that he spoke to David Wright, the managing director of the company which has undertaken to lay the artificial surface at the stadium.

According to the fax message received by the organisers, the engineers are arriving here `within 72 hours'.

Meanwhile, Indian Hockey Federation secretary K Jothi Kumaran said from Chennai that Muneer Sait would be the Technical Director for the tournament and both of them would assess the situation on laying of the poligras surface at the new venue. However, he said that the tournament would be completed by May 30 as the National Games were scheduled to begin the next day. The initial phase of the tournament would be gone through at the SAI complex, he added.

Indian Airlines, Steel Authority of India Limited, Tamil Nadu, Central Excise and Customs have already arrived in the City. Bengal, Gujarat, Vidarbha, Railways, Madhya Bharath, Hyderabad, Haryana and Andhra are expected on Tuesday.

The championship will be inaugurated at the SAI complex on Wednesday morning according to D S Murthy, president of Karnataka State Hockey Association (KSHA). He said that five matches would be held on the inaugural day.

KSHA secretary Krishnamurthy said that the matches would be rescheduled. More matches would have to be held at the SAI complex as the matches at the hockey stadium would begin only after May 20.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.