This last week the Pakistan Federation Baseball (PFB) sent its women team to feature in the World Cup which has started in Gijang, South Korea. Though the participation of Pakistani women in such a mega event is a positive development, results may not be as encouraging.

Top teams of the world --- USA, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Venezuela, hosts Korea and Japan -- are competing in the event, leaving a little chance for Pakistan to even give a tough fight to opponents.

Captain Zaiba Manzoor, who had also played for Pakistan women cricket team, admitted that it was a hard task to win any match, but the girls were determined to perform with their full potential against every team.

In the first match, South Korea has crushed Pakistan 10-0. For a two-month long training camp, the PFB had hired the services of a women coach from Taiwan who imparted training to Pakistani women. But it requires a long process of coaching and hard training to be able to give a tough fight to teams at the international level.

The baseball federation has also earned a milestone in the men’s category as the world’s major league of the US has included Pakistan in the World Cup Classic qualifying round to be held in New York from Sept 22 to 25.

Pakistan is included in the major event due to its better ranking of 23 in 124 countries. Though Pakistan has attained 5th position in Asia, the world’s giants like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China are the potential rivals in the region. To compete teams of these countries, the PFB needs all-out support from the government. Currently, the federation has not a single playfield across the country, which tells the poor state of affairs of the game.

Recently, a renowned private realtor handed over a playfield to the federation. It helped the federation in setting up its men and women training camp for the two international events.

The federal as well as provincial governments should extend every help to all those federations which are performing better at the international level.

The Lahore Regional Cricket Association (LRCA) has fielded two teams in the national T20 Cup being held under a new format in two phases.

The first phase has been completed in Rawalpindi and the second will start in Multan from Sept 5. It is the first time that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has decided to hold its premier event of the domestic cricket in two cities.

It is also the first time that heads of the region have been allowed to pick any player of the country in his team through players draft system.

So far the performance of Lahore Whites is satisfactory, attaining second position with four points. The topper is the Peshawar Region (eight points) which is unbeaten in the first phase.

The performance of Blues, the LRCA’s second team, is alarming as it is at the 7th place in the eight-team contest. Even the Fata team is performing better than the Blues.

The Lahore Whites team is star-studded and it should have been at the top. Test opener Salman Butt (189 runs), Kamran Akmal (172 runs) and Umar Akmal (114 runs) are playing for the Lahore Whites.

In the bowling department, a little-known fast bowler Amad Butt has taken six wickets and also attracted the national selection committee which has picked him for the one-off T20 match against England to be played on Sept 7.

The National Games, which have been allotted to Balochistan Olympic Association, seems to be postponed on security ground. The games are to be held in Quetta in November.

The terrorists had carried out a suicide blast in Quetta’s court last month, killing over 70 people, mostly lawyers. Report says that organizers are in quandary either to host the games as per schedule or wait till next month with a hope that the law and order situation may become better in the province.

The national games were to be held in 2014 in Quetta, but the event had to be postponed for the same reason of poor law and order situation in the province.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2016