Departments not willing to bear domestic cricket expenses

KARACHI: The PCB high ups have received no positive response from departments which had been asked to bear some of the financial burden of domestic cricket, ‘The News’ has learnt.

Sources in the management of departmental cricket teams told this scribe that some of the departments had avoided responding to PCB, while others had communicated their inability to bear the expenditure.

A source said that PCB high ups themselves were not clear in their mind about what they wanted from the departments. He said asking departments to share the cost of domestic cricket without telling them what role they would have was strange.

He said that the departments that were under the domain of the federal government had not refused, but they had indicated their unwillingness to support any regional team.

PCB chairman Ehsan Mani and chief executive officer Wasim Khan met heads of many departments — including PIA, NBP, CAA, SBP, and SNGPL — last month, but they have not received any positive response so far.

The departments want to know what they will get by spending money on cricket activities now that their own teams had been thrown out of domestic cricket. Their officials say they can’t foot the bill just to have their name attached with a regional team.

A source said that the Board had still not lost hope and was continuing its effort to get the departments to contribute to the running of domestic cricket.