KARACHI: The Quetta Gladiators have shortlisted 60 players from the initial phase of U-23 Talent Hunt ‘Your Gateway to Stardom’ from Quetta and Hub for final trials, which will take place on Sept 19 at the Bugti Stadium.

Former Pakistan Test spinner and ex-chief selector Iqbal Qasim will lead the selection of final trials as the director while he will be assisted by Saleem Jaffer and initial phase’s chief selector Zafar Ahmed.

Moin Khan, the Quetta Gladiators’ head coach, will also oversee the final selection process.

Meanwhile, the Quetta Regional Cricket Association president Murad Ismail thanked the Gladiators’ owner Nadeem Omar for providing a ray of hope to the youth of Balochistan.

“We can proudly say that Balochistan have finally found a man who is showing the sense of ownership in Nadeem Omar so big thanks to him for providing the youth with a new hope,” Murad said.

“The Quetta Gladiators Talent Hunt ‘Your Gateway to Stardom’ has instilled new life into cricket of our province and the youngsters have a chance to become stars through this initiative. Never before did such initiatives took place to encourage young cricketers of our region.”

Lasbela Cricket Association president Zafar also had words of praise for the Gladiators and Nadeem stating that the players of Balochistan will also be trained under highly-qualified coaches and will be able to utilise top-class facilities just like players of big centres.

“This talent hunt will be a big success as there is a lot of talent in the region and all what players need is support, equal opportunity and facilities which they will get through this talent programme,” Zafar said. “We can’t thank Nadeem Omar, Gladiators and Omar Associates for this initiative because we felt deprived for years but the feeling will be no more.”

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2016