LAHORE: International Cricket Council (ICC) president and former Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas signed on Friday an MoU with the government of Punjab for establishing cricket academies in all major cities of the province.

The signing ceremony was held here at the Sports Board Punjab offices.

According to the details, in the first phase, the academies are to be established in Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi, and in Sialkot, where Zaheer was born.

Later, addressing a joint press conference with Punjab Sports Minister Rana Mashhood, Zaheer said he would personally run the affairs of the academies and his role as the ICC president would not affect his working at the academies. He said the academies would spot and polish the talent and will coordinate with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to untilise it.

Rana Mashhood thanked Zaheer for extending his cooperation for the cricket academies. He said an important meeting was held under the chairmanship of Hamza Shahbaz on Jan 4 in which it was disclosed that final touches were being given to around one thousand sports playgrounds including 29 in Lahore, to make good level infrastructure available for the youngsters.

He said these grounds were being built in Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Gujrat, Sialkot, Sheikhupura, Okara, Khanewal, Bahawalpur, DG Khan and Layyah.

However, when reminded that the Punjab government had recently deprived Iqbal Park Sports Complex of well established cricket and sports infrastructure including the nets which had affected as many as 16 cricket clubs known to have produced a good number of Test and international cricketers, the minister said the government is considering various options to provide the nets facilities to those clubs either at the same venue or at an alternate place.

Answering a question about the non-inclusion of cricket in the constitution of the Sports Board Punjab, the minister said a new SBP constitution had been prepared and it had been sent for the approval according to which the SBP would take care of all the sports. He said in fact the cricket academies would prove a helping hand for the PCB in spotting new talent.

To a question, Director General Sports Board Usman Anwar said Zaheer Abbas would head the Executive Board and he would also monitor the coaching and working of the academies. Usman ensured that crystal clear system would be adopted by Zaheer to pick the players for the academies, purely on merit.

Zaheer Abbas and Usman Anwar later formally signed the MOUs.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2016