Raja urges PCB to pick right administrators as new domestic system floats

Ex-captain Ramiz Raja has urged the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to be extra vigilant while picking the right administrators for their newly introduced domestic structure.

“I would like to congratulate the cricket board for taking these tough decisions, and I am hopeful that we would now move in the right direction,” said Raja, in a video message.

Under the PCB’s latest domestic structure announced days ago, 16 regions have been merged into six associations, namely Balochistan, Sindh, Southern Punjab, Central Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Northern.

“We need to have a top quality administration, because we would need to hunt those who would run these 90 cricket associations. So we should not get involved in the same petty politics and club level mindset that could destroy a good system,” said Raja.

The new domestic structure is divided into three different tiers. The first tier is made up of 90 city cricket association which will be organizing club cricket, the second tier would feature city cricket teams that would participate in intra city competition and lastly, in the third tier teams from six associations will participate in the PCB sponsored tournaments.

Raja said that the previous system based on region cricket was not bad, however, the system got corrupt and dysfunctional because of incompetent administrators.

The ex-captain further pointed out that the domestic associations should run just like the Pakistan Super League franchises. “If you asked me all the domestic four-day matches, T20s should get televised, because until it is not seen, one would not get the sponsors and the system could not run professionally.”

He further said that the system has got the potential to produce superstars for Pakistan cricket.