The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Saturday unveiled an ambitious and competitive 2019-20 domestic cricket structure, which revolves around the creation of a more quality and intensity focused system to significantly improve first-class cricket and thus create sustainable success at international level. The new structure will give importance to club cricket, provide the best cricketing environment to young talented cricketers, reward top performers, create employment opportunities to former cricketers and qualified coaches, and bridge the gap between domestic and international cricket.
The new domestic structure will be based on a three-tiered bottom up approach; providing a clear pathway for the aspiring cricketers to graduate to the top level, bringing in more young and talented cricketers in the system. In the first tier, the 90 city cricket associations will be responsible for organizing club and school cricket in their respective jurisdictions.
In the second tier, the city cricket teams will participate in intra-city competitions within the jurisdiction of their cricket associations while in the third tier, the best performing players from the intra-city competitions will form the six respective cricket association side.
Pakistan's cricketing season 2019-20 will commence from September 14 with the first round of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, the country's premier first-class tournament. A total number of 31 matches - including the final - will be played, with every team playing 10 matches, home and away, on double round-robin basis. The first-class and non-first-class tournaments will run simultaneously, providing the six associations depth to choose the best XI for their first class matches. The same will be the case for the List 'A' and T20 cricket.
To support domestic cricket and provide and improve the cricket environment for the professional cricketers, the PCB has taken measures to upgrade the quality of playing facilities, including pitches, outfields, player and umpire dressing rooms and media/broadcast working areas. In this relation, the PCB is committed to spending over Rs two billion in upgradation of stadia in Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi and Quetta.
PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani said: "We are delighted to announce that we have achieved the target of reforming our domestic structure. One of the key priorities of this PCB administration is to enhance the quality of cricket, which will in due course also begin to reflect in our on-field performances at the international level. We want to develop consistency in our performances, across all formats, at the apex level so these reforms were pertinent."
Mani said, "The PCB will provide assistance to the provincial associations in setting up the structure, which will include helping them in assembling a council - which will look after the affairs - and aiding them in attaining sponsorship deals. The PCB has worked extremely hard behind the scenes to make this happen. But we also understand there may be a few teething issues in the first year of the new structure, but I assure all stakeholders we will address these professionally and ensure the 2020-21 is smoother."
PCB Chief Executive Wasim Khan said: "A clear pathway is being laid out for the club cricketers to graduate to the provincial level cricket at the apex level. In all, approximately 450 players, coaches, physios, selectors and other support staff will be involved in domestic cricket."
He said, "The launch of the new domestic structure perfectly aligns with the World Test Championship, which commenced with the Ashes. Pakistan's opening series is in October and we aspire to feature in the final which will be held at the end of the two-year cycle in 2021. The PCB strongly believes in primacy of Test cricket, which is the traditional format of the game and in which we have slipped in our performances. We firmly believe this structure will not only help the PCB raise a team that can play in the 2021 final but also an opportunity to the talented and skilled cricketers to represent Pakistan in the purist format of the game."
Comments
Comments are closed.