July 16, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 30, 1428

KARACHI, July 15: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced that 11 regional associations will be beneficiaries of all income generated through gate-money of the international matches hosted within the country from this season onwards.

Shafqat Naghmi, the PCB Chief Operating Officer, while addressing a press conference on Sunday, declared that the association hosting the match will get 10 per cent of the gate-money and would get its share when the remaining amount is divided between all regions.

“We would like to make the regions financially sound. This is a beginning of a step, which we are sure, would help them to utilise this money to develop cricket in their respective region,” Shafqat said after a meeting of the newly-formed advisory council.

Reiterating the PCB’s policy of working in harmony with the regions, he declared that the relations between the regions and cricket board will improve.

“During our meeting with representatives of associations and departments, we emphasized on the need to work together for the benefit of Pakistan cricket,” Shafqat remarked. “The objective behind the exercise is to improve the standard of our domestic cricket so that spectators are attracted to the grounds.”

Outlining the salient features of the coming domestic season, the COO said the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy, the country’s premier first-class tournament, will be played from Oct this year with 13 regional outfits and eight departments competing in two pools.

“At the end of the first season, five teams will be relegated, but none promoted from the Patron’s Trophy. From next season (2008-09) onwards, however, 16 teams would compete in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy with the bottom two demoted.

“The top two sides of the Patron’s Trophy in the 2008-09 season will be eligible to play in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy in the season of 2009-10,” he explained.

A total of 19 departments playing in the Patron’s Trophy, which has now again been classified as non first-class competition from the forthcoming season.

A three-member selection committee would be formed in each of the 11 regions to pick the teams for the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy. Two of the selectors would be nominated by regions with one of them heading the committee. The PCB would be nominating the remaining selector.

The PCB has also decided to introduce a three-tier central contract system for the players competing in domestic tournaments. The players in the top tier would get Rs20,000 per month while Rs15,000 would be given to the players in the second tier with Rs10,000 for the last tier.

The National Selection Committee, which includes Salahuddin Ahmed (chairman), Shafqat Rana and Saleem Jaffer, will be given the task to select 75 cricketers who would form five teams for the Pentangular Trophy, which is slated to be played in February/March.

The PCB also declared its intention to further promote the game at the grassroots level in the shape of club and school cricket. In the coming season, the board plans to increase the number of participating schools to 800 as opposed to 600 last season.

A monitoring committee will oversee the school competition — for which Rs105 million have been allocated — after several cases of falsifying ages were reported in the past. In one instance, father and son were found competing simultaneously in the PCB Inter-school tournament.

Two of the regional representatives, Naeem Gulzar of Sialkot and Peshawar’s Visal Durrani, didn’t attend the advisory council meeting for personal reasons.