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| January 28, 2003 | Tuesday | Ziqa’ad 24, 1423 |
Lack of facilities at Pindi: PIA manager
RAWALPINDI, Jan 27: While the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is focussed on the World Cup, the premier domestic tournament, the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy it seems is being ignored somewhat.
With the quarterfinal between PIA and Wapda set to begin Tuesday at the Rawalpindi Stadium, the Airlines team manager Rashid Khan has spoken out against the lack of facilities at the venue that is a Test centre.
“There is no water and electricity at the stadium which is a big problem for the teams,” he told Dawn.
“To make matters worse, the Rawalpindi Cricket Association (RCA) organised two friendly matches on successive days after our last game here which should not have been done on the eve of an important quarterfinal.”
PIA defeated Bahawalpur in their pre quarterfinal by an innings and 132 runs on Friday inside three days. The friendly games were played on Saturday, which was to be the last day of the Trophy match, and then again on Sunday.
“I mentioned the poor state of facilities at the venue in my report to the PCB after the Bahawalpur match but nothing has been done. As there is no water, the grass at the ground is fast turning from green to brown.”
Continuing to give vent to his feelings, Rashid said that he had chosen to turn to the press because as manager he was answerable.
President of RCA, Masood Anwar denied having organised any matches at the stadium. “No tournament games or friendlies were staged by us on the given dates,” he said.
“Besides, renting out the ground for such matches is the responsibility of the stadium’s administrators and RCA is in no way involved.”
Masood expressed surprise over Rashid’s comments, saying that just a few days ago he had been praising the facilities at the Stadium.
No official of the ground’s administration was immediately available for comment.
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