KARACHI, Nov 15: The President of the Sindh Cricket Association (SCA) Haseeb Ahsan on Saturday claimed that the mushroom growth of cricket academies in the province was bringing destruction to the game instead of making further improvements.

A former national chief selector Haseeb stressed this point during his meeting with the ad hoc chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Lt Gen (retd) Tauqir Zia.

“If cricket was to improve in the province we would have to go years back and the game could only prosper if it is traced at the grass root level like schools and colleges where cricket was once played on matting wickets, very close to turf instead of the cement wickets that ruined the game in the years gone by”.

After hearing Haseeb out the PCB Chief agreed to his proposal and at a meeting of the officials of the SCA and it was decided in principle to hold an Inter-school cricket tournament to be played on an all Sindh basis.

Haseeb said that the SCA would be working with the provincial ministry of education, who will contact teams from all over Sindh, especially from the rural areas to participate in this tournament.

The SCA President disclosed that jute and coir mattings from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will be imported and given to schools, colleges and even clubs besides manufacturers of sports goods would be persuaded to provide schools and colleges cricket kits at very nominal rates.

He also revealed that PCB has also agreed to send their coaches to different schools and colleges to teach the youngsters the finer art of the game.

This experiment would be tried out for a period of three years and if successful would continue further.

The inter-school competion, which will contested by the best known schools of the province, is expected to get under way after the Holy month of Ramazan.