Like other seven cricket regions, the Lahore also selected its two T20 teams through a players’ draft method for the upcoming national event at a ceremony held here last week by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

The national T20 Cricket Tournament is being held in Rawalpindi from Aug 25. Its final leg will be held in Multan till Sept 15. The players draft is a new way of selection adopted by the PCB, putting the names of different cricketers from all over the country before the regional heads and their coaches to pick any of them with a binding to first select four players of their own region. The rest 11 players of a 15-member squad could be selected from other regions.

The prominent cricketers in the Lahore Blues team are Nasir Jamshed, Saad Nasim and Ahmad Shahzad, who will lead the side.

The Blues will also have the services of lanky fast bowler Rahat Ali from Multan, hard-hitting batsman Nauman Anwar from the Sialkot Region and many other cricketers who will come from outside of the Lahore region.

Former Test wicket keeper Kamran Akmal will lead the Lahore Whites, the second team of the city. The other prominent members of this team will be discarded by Umar Akmal and tainted Test opener and former captain Salman Butt.

It will be the first national T20 tourney for Salman Butt after the completion of his five-year ban imposed on him by the ICC for his involvement in a spot-fixing scam.

Salman Butt still poses a threat to the current opening lot of Muhammad Hafeez, Shan Masood and even the discarded opener, Ahmad Shahzad.

Earlier, pacer Muhammad Aamir, who was also involved in the spot-fixing scam, has made a successful comeback in the national team after completing his five-year ban. During the five years, Pakistan could produce neither an opener of Salman Butt’s class nor a talented bowler like Muhammad Amir which shows the overall decline in the cricket standard.

The Lahore Whites team will have prominent guest players like Ehsan Adil, Imran Khan and Shahid Yousaf and several more from other regions. The new system, hopefully, will help develop good relations among the cricketers of different cities.

Around 100 men and women swimmers of the country, representing their different teams, are in Lahore for the National Swimming Championship which is in progress at the newly-built DHA swimming pool.

The 50-metre pool is equipped with all facilities and modern gadgets. Punjab has fielded its men and women teams, but their performances are not that impressive. Only the teams of army, Wapda and Sindh are performing better. The teams of Punjab, Balochistan, navy and HEC Islamabad, are also participating in the event.

Around 40 technical officials are supervising a week-long competition.

There is a dearth of swimming pools in Punjab which is why the swimmers of Sindh, particularly women, are far better than those of Punjab.

Both the Punjab Sports Board and the Punjab Olympic Association have chalked out their programmes of holding different events of sports to celebrate the Independence Day.

The competitions in hockey, volleyball, weightlifting, power-lifting, wrestling and cycling will continue from Aug 3 to 14.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2016