Change in domestic ­cricket structure: Imran remains undeterred by stalwarts’ criticism

KARACHI: Seemingly undeterred by the former Pakistan’s captain Javed Miandad’s criticism of abolition of departmental cricket, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Miandad has his own opinion.

“Miandad has his own thinking,” Imran told senior journalists in Islamabad on Monday. “There is no precedent anywhere in the world that a sponsor or a bank is playing its own team,” Imran said.

Miandad a few days ago had strongly opposed the Prime Minister’s decision to abolish departmental cricket at a press conference here at the Karachi Press Club. But Imran seems to have stuck to his plan of giving the country a six-team first-class structure.

According to the proposed first-class cricket structure, six teams, Sindh, North Punjab, South Punjab, Balochistan, Federal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, will be featuring on double league basis.

And besides the Pakistan Super League (PSL), which will have its usual format, in the rest of the other domestic events, 16 associations each will be contesting. Hours after a high-level meeting in Islamabad at the end of March in which Imran Khan ordered the PCB to go for a six-team first-class cricket structure, Habib Bank Limited (HBL) decided to demobilise its cricket team. HBL were champions of both the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and the One-day event held last season.

On April 17, five out of the seven PCB Governing Board members, moved a resolution in Quetta, rejecting the PCB’s move to abolish departments and regions in the domestic cricket. Imran was critical of the departmental system even during his playing days. And he is now adamant to overhaul the domestic cricket system.

“Throughout the world regional matches are held. Pakistan is the only country where sponsor plays its own team. This is nowhere in the world such a practice. The type of talent which we have in Pakistan is nowhere in the world. And people like Viv Richards acknowledge this,” Imran said. “The problem here is that the system in place does not allow the talent to come up. Now we are changing the regional cricket. Not a single player of Quetta was playing in the Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) and the whole Quetta was following that team,” said Imran, who led Pakistan to its only World Cup title in 1992.

“Pakistan is the only country left where people say that departments give jobs. There is huge money in cricket. I guarantee you that no nation can defeat Pakistan if you correct the corrupt system,” Imran said.