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Tuesday March 19, 2024

PCB’s BoG makes no clear headway over future domestic cricket

By Abdul Mohi Shah
December 20, 2018

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Governing Body (BoG) that met the other day in Lahore made no clear headway to shape up the future of domestic cricket with lot of questions still remained unanswered and possibly would continue the same way in months to come.

An insider confirmed to The News that efforts were more to confuse all rather than making a decisive move towards the formation of new system that would ultimately shape the future of Pakistan first class cricket.

The Board’s hand out following the meeting suggested that the PCB Task Force’s report on domestic cricket structure was also discussed at length. The BoG has approved the conceptual framework recommended by the task force in which both the departments and regions will continue to have an important role. It was reiterated that the interest of all stakeholders, especially the players, will be safeguarded. The Task Force has been advised to work on the details of the structure based on constitutional and financial parameters.

Even Director Development and one of the members of the Task Force Haroon Rashid were seen playing with the slides during the meeting. No hard copies were shared even with the members on the finding of Task Force or any efforts were made to share with them the roadmap to new domestic cricket, to be more precise the future formation of the PCB working. The Task Force headed by Lt Gen (rtd) Muzammil Hussain has already been working on those lines. It is almost certain that departments would not be having direct entry into the first class cricket like the way they were treated previously. Top departments would be associated with the regional teams like for example-HBL Lahore Region. It is also not yet clear as what role these departments would be having in regional teams’ formation. Would supporting and backing regions become a joint venture of PCB and that respective department?

In that scenario, would it not be a difficult option for the department to keep their cricketing department alive. Chances are reasonable that every department would go on to shelve their cricketing budget. In years to come they may go on to divert that budget to some other sports. The biggest problem would come when youngsters especially those springing out of junior cricket would find it difficult to get a job. If the future domestic cricket would be restricted to just eight teams, only those would be hired or given opportunity to represent regions who have already attained maturity. The fate of hockey is very much there for everyone to see.