ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has received a record 3,807 applications for club registration this year while 3,115 clubs were registered two years back.
However, the rumors are there that in some cases two office-bearers of the same club applied for registration differently.
The process of scrutiny is yet to be completed and it would only be after that one would have a clear knowledge as how many clubs would get the green signal from the board.
The Lahore High Court’s Multan bench has already directed the PCB not to finalise the process till the judgment on the pending cases.
Just before the new constitution came into effect in August 2019, 3,115 clubs were registered with the PCB. However, following the amendments to the model constitutions as well as the introduction of club affiliation and operational rules, the PCB has received 3,807 applications, which reflects an increase by 22 per cent.
The club registration process had commenced on March 10 and by March 22, the PCB had received 1,362 applications. This means in the past 17 days, 2,445 more clubs have showed their confidence in the PCB by applying for the registration.
The maximum number of applications have been received for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Cricket Association which stand at 845. The breakdown of the other five Cricket Associations is Balochistan (502), Central Punjab (774), Northern (486), Sindh (676) and Southern Punjab (524).
Amongst the City Cricket Associations, Karachi being the major center has brought forward 231 — the most — applications, while 222 have been received from Lahore.
In Central Punjab, over 100 applications have been received from Faisalabad. The PCB has gotten 94 applications from Sindh’s Hyderabad and 87 from Northern’s Rawalpindi, while 82 and 83 applications have come from Balochistan’s Quetta and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu, respectively.