KARACHI: More than two weeks after announcing their domestic calendar including regional inter-district tournaments, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Women’s Wing on Friday officially formed their regional associations and nominated representatives to run the affairs of women’s cricket in 11 regions in conjunction with the associations set up for men’s cricket all over the country.

However, the critics feel that the move smacks of women wing’s unprofessional approach towards things since the regional tournaments were announced earlier while the associations to run them have been named now.

And to make matters worse, Women’s Wing Chairperson Mrs Shirin Javed, too, has left the country due to a personal emergency while leaving behind her manager, former hockey player Ayesha Ashhar, in charge of running the matters of women’s cricket in Pakistan.

Speaking to Dawn on Friday, a day before taking off to the US, Mrs Javed said that she was glad to announce that they have officially formed their regional associations. 'We hope to unearth more talent through these associations by holding regular competitions on the regional level,' she said.

But the regional coaching sessions as well as the Under-19 Regional Inter-District Tournament, to be held between October and November as per the PCB calendar announced earlier, have also fallen behind schedule. But Mrs Javed, while still avoiding to give a specific date for the commencement of the tournaments, assured that things would catch on soon enough.

'Many girls have not been able to make it to the academies due to the prevailing security situation in their respective cities. The tournaments will get underway when we have teams to play in them,' she said. 'Still I’m glad to report that there has been much progress in Karachi,' she added.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Pakistan Women’s Cricket Association (PWCA), an unregistered body headed by Shirin Javed that the PCB took over after holding a scrutiny in 2005 while ignoring the already registered and recognised Pakistan Women’s Cricket Control Association (PWCCA), initially claimed to have more than 200 active women’s cricket clubs in Pakistan.

Although when reviewed again, the number of these clubs were reduced to 51 and subsequently to 40, the Women’s Wing still must have teams to feature in the domestic tournament along with the grounds to play the matches on, as is the requirement for registering a club.

It is also rather strange that all the progress has been made in Karachi rather than the Women’s Wing headquarters in Lahore.

Meanwhile, when Dawn contacted Mrs Naz Alam Sherazi, the association representative named for Karachi, she informed that they had in fact formed four teams representing the city’s eight zones after holding two-day open trials on Oct 31 and Nov 1.

'Some 140 girls appeared for the trials and we were able to make four strong and balanced teams by combining zone one and two to make one team and three and four and five and six to make another two and zone seven as the fourth,' she explained.

'The selection was carried out by Sagheer Abbas, Tauseef Ahmed and Abid Elahi,' she added. 'We are currently experiencing a shortage of grounds due to the men’s Quaid-i-Azam Trophy matches but are hopeful to soon find a way around that hitch as well.'

The U-19 Regional Inter-District Tournament is expected to be played in all the 11 regions with the winners of each event going on to play in the National U-19 tournament, which will be held in Karachi in January next year.