Proposed domestic structure: PCB task force to meet departments, regions heads

KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) task force on domestic cricket will meet heads of the departments and regions in near future to discuss with them the proposed structure of the domestic cricket before finalising the parameters which would be subject to approval from the Board of Governors, sources told ‘The News’ on Friday.

The sources said the task force was confident that the heads of the regions and the departments would give their thumbs up for the proposed structure which according to them would bring a revolution in Pakistan’s cricket.

The sources said it had been approved by the BoG on Thursday in Lahore that there would be merger of departments and regions and eight teams would feature in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Grade-I and the same number of outfits would be part of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Grade-II.

The sources said that one team would be relegated from the top-tier cricket. And the winners of the second-tier event would make it to the top-tier competitions, they said.

The sources said that PCB would have to amend its constitution in order to make proposed changes.The sources said as there was no concept of merger of departments and regions in the PCB constitution, its constitution committee would have to work and amend the constitution.

The sources said that there was still a lot of work to be done and the process might take around a couple of months.How the merger of regions and departments will happen is yet to be finalised.

The sources said different options were being weighed in this connection. “For example it is also possible that a few small regions are combined with two or three departments to form one team. In case of major regions and departments, one region and one department could form one unit. These matters are yet to be finalised,” a source said.

It is also yet to be decided how the proposed system would be operated, who would operate it, what the selection procedure would be, the system of financing and the role of the PCB.The sources rubbished the reports that the role of departments was being minimised.

They said that instead the departments were being strengthened.Under the new system quality players of the country would get chance to play top cricket which would help Pakistan improve its performance in international circuit, the sources said.

The task force made a presentation to the BoG on the proposed structure on Thursday. The BoG expressed its satisfaction on the progress made and agreed that the under-consideration structure was competitive and would produce high quality cricket.

It was agreed that once the parameters and concept were finalised and agreed, they would be presented to the BoG for approval. “The task force is making good progress and I think they will soon be able to present the best model designed for Pakistan cricket to the BoG for approval,” the PCB chairman Ehsan Mani was quoted as saying after the BoG meeting on Thursday.