May 7, 2005	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 27, 1426

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LAHORE, May 6: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will arrange school level cricket with Sri Lanka to promote the game at the grassroots level, the PCB chairman, Shaharyar M Khan, stated after attending the prize distribution ceremony of the Lahore Inter-school final on Friday. The chairman said that Sri Lankan cricket was strong at school level and holding matches with them would be more competitive for Pakistan’s school cricket.

He said that in all 465 schools were taking part in the competitions being held at district level. After it the regional round would be held in which traditional cricket (two or more days matches) would be held.

“The one-day cricket at grassroots level is not good and it is also banned in India, therefore, the board will provide opportunity to the boys to play traditional cricket. But it is still to be decided if the matches will be of two or three days duration”, he said.

He said efforts were being made to promote cricket at school level as it had to play a great role in national cricket. He said the standard of the competitions at local level was tough and hopefully more competitive cricket would be seen at Inter-region school cricket.