KARACHI: There has been complete silence in the circles of departmental cricket teams since the PCB unveiled its domestic format for the season 2019-20.
Under the new arrangement, only regional teams will participate in the domestic cricket. The new domestic season starts next month.
When the authorities first spoke of a new domestic format based on regional teams only, there was serious resentment and the departmental cricket teams heads expressed their displeasure. But now there is total silence.
A source who heads a departmental cricket team told 'The News' that they had not received any directives from their high-ups about continuing or dismantling their teams.
He said that huge money was spent in establishing cricket teams and a number of institutions constructed their sports complex. “We cannot abolish our sports infrastructure and cricket teams in a single shot,” he said.
“We are observing the situation and waiting for our high officials to take a decision keeping in mind the federal government's policies,” he said. “Our cricket teams remain functional. We haven't closed our teams so far,” he further said.
The heads of departmental cricket teams are in contact with each other and after receiving the directives of their high-ups would be in a position to say anything about the future of their teams and cricket stadiums, the source said.
He said they were striving to save the departmental teams. “These teams were not built in one day. Neither were cricket stadiums developed without money,” he said. The source also said that the departments' heads had not received any directive from the federal government to disband their squads or close stadiums. It is pertinent to mention here that some former great cricketers are heads of sports departments of various organisations.