Regions may challenge PCB domestic policies

KARACHI: Cricketers and organisers in various parts of the country are frustrated by the reduction in the number of teams in the domestic T20 cricket tournament.

The change in the format of the event has been criticised vehemently by a large part of the country’s cricket fraternity.

The domestic T20 cup has been organised for the past 11 years with 18 teams, but this year PCB has decided to reduce the number of teams to eight.

Zulfiqar Malik, former member PCB Governing Body and former president Sialkot cricket association, said how this format could be appreciated when 70 percent of the country’s cricket nurseries producing most talented cricketers have been deprive of their right to play in this event.

He said that PCB domestic cricket committee was responsible for the disaster in the domestic cricket as it had excluded seven times champions Sialkot, three times champions Faisalabad, various cricket regions of Southern Punjab including Multan, Bahawalpur, as well as Balochistan.

Zulfiqar appealed to the PM Nawaz Sharif, who is the patron in chief of PCB, to take notice of the way domestic cricket was being handled.

Zulfiqar said that the players of the regions were very serious and had decided to go to courts to get justice. He said that he decided to go to courts when he saw that no one was stopping the PCB’s wrongdoings.

He said PCB binds all cricket associations and departments not to criticize its policies because of which nobody is speaking up.

Zulfiqar hoped the courts would provide justice to the deprived cricket associations and departments.

He said the details would be announced in a couple of days. All affected teams would gather under one umbrella, he added.

Under the new format, there will be two teams each from Lahore and Karachi.

Muhammad Salman, former Test cricketer, said that it was regretful that the regions that had provided the best players to the country in recent years, including Faisalabad, Sialkot, Bahawalpur, Multan and Abbottabad were out of the domestic T20 competition.

He said that narrow-minded and self-interested officials of PCB had dragged Pakistan to 9th position in ODIs.

“The T20 world ranking of Pakistan is 7th, so one can imagine the performance of PCB’s domestic cricket policy makers,” he said.

Salman said that Pakistan was not like England and Australia whose examples PCB officials presented. In England there are 22 first class teams out of 60 million people and Australia has eight teams out of 20 million people. Pakistan is a country of 220 million people, but it has only eight teams.

He said that a PCB official always includes Islamabad division team whether there are 10 teams or 18.

Salman said while there would be no Faisalabad or Sialkot, twin cities Rawalpindi and Islamabad had separate teams.

He said these cities did not produce big names in recent years and their teams consist of mostly outsiders, but those cities which produced cricketers like Misbah ul Haq, Shoaib Malik, Saeed Ajmal and Yasir Hameed were deprived of their due status.

Amir Nawab, former member governing body, also lashed out on PCB’s frequent changes in domestic cricket format. He termed the new format of T20 disastrous for Pakistan cricket.

The former member PCB governing body said that PCB had not conducted elections in Rawalpindi, Abbottabad, Dir and Mansehra because they knew that their cronies would lose.

Amir said that many deserving cricketers like Khalid Usman, who was the leading wicket-taker thrice in three previous domestic T20 events, were not given any chance. Khalid was not even called to the training camp, Amir said.

Hyderabad’s Azeem Ghumman, Karachi’s Fawad Alam and Abbottabad’s Junaid Khan were being treated in the same way, he added.

Amir said that PCB high-ups should realise where they had taken the domestic cricket by changing format every year.

Ata Kurd, former executive assistant of Quetta Region Cricket Association and president of Marker Cricket Club, said that the PCB had destroyed Pakistan’s cricket. “Only one player from Balochistan, Bismillah Khan, is eligible to play first class cricket from the entire province this year, so one can imagine how cricket is being run in the country,” he added.

He said that qualifying rounds should be introduced for domestic T20 cricket so that there was no room for complaining.

Kurd further said that there was only Bugti Cricket stadium in the province, and even that did not have floodlights. “How can cricket be promoted when first class cricket stadiums are not being developed in the province,” he asked.

He said that PCB also failed to develop a cricket academy in Balochistan and the entire province had been linked to the academy in Karachi, which was also lying dormant for several months.

The former official said that cricket stadiums developed during the era of Lt Gen (rtd) Tauqir Zia in Sibbi, Naseerabad, Chaman, and Noshki were victims of sheer negligence.