Next week, Lahore will be hosting back-to-back eliminators of the third Pakistan Super League (PSL). The matches are scheduled for working days on Tuesday and Wednesday. The winners of these matches will go to Karachi for the final to be held on March 25.

For the first time, two cities of Pakistan are hosting PSL matches after Dubai and Sharjah that hosted 31 matches, including one eliminator. In the first edition in 2016, no match was held in Pakistan because foreign players were not ready to travel to Pakistan for security reasons. However, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced that the second edition’s final would be played in Lahore. Now, in the third edition, the number of matches in Pakistan has been increased to three. The situation is still not promising as several big names of the cricket are not ready to come to Pakistan to play these matches.

The matches in Lahore are not a matter of excitement for Lahore Qalandars as the team did not qualify for the elimination round as it kept its ‘firm’ stand on the bottom place. Karachi Kings, for the first time, while Islamabad United the winner of the first edition, Quetta Gladiators, the runners-up of the first two episodes, and Peshawar Zalmi the defending champion, have qualified for the elimination round.

In the first two editions, among five teams, the Qalandars remained fifth and now in the six-team event, they are the 6th. Of 10 matches, the team lost the first six matches on the trot to face lots of criticism. In the last four matches, the team made a comeback and won three consecutive matches, before losing the last one to Peshawar Zalmi by seven wickets. The Qalandars have disappointed their fans with their poor display in the premier event. After Karachi, Lahore is the hub of cricket, but the Qalandars, which held trials throughout the country to pick the best lot for the third edition, proved that their exercise was nothing but a show to get publicity. This time, the Qalandars have hired the services of chief selector Inzamamul Haq as adviser and former Test speedster Shoaib Akhtar mentor to harvest some better crop for the third season. Inzamam and Shoaib also failed to change their traditional bottom position. The Lahore Qalandars need a serious management, that should be more focused on cricket instead of publicity.

Contrary to the Qalandars, the debutant Multan Sultans made a flying entry to their first edition winning four matches in the first seven matches. They lost two matches and abandoned one and remained fairly in the contest for the last four places. But the Sultans took a slide, losing last three matches on the trot and when the Karachi Kings beat the Islamabad United, the topper, in the last game, it cleared the way for the Kings to qualify for the play-offs for the first time.

Security officials are facing a challenge to hold the two matches in a smooth way. They have been doing dress rehearsals for the last some days. The top teams will fly to Lahore from Dubai after the first eliminator is scheduled to be held here on March 18. The entire Nishtar Sports Complex area will be turned into no go area for the general public from Sunday.

A bomb blast on Raiwind Road last week reminded the administration about the security issue. It is hoped security officials will successfully hold the matches.

While Lahore will be the centre point of the PSL matches, Peshawar will be hosting the 4th Inter-Provincial Games in these days (March 18 to 20). A 325-member Punjab contingent left Lahore for Peshawar last week to take part in the sports gala. Punjab is the defending champion. Though the games are the biggest sporting event of the country, involving almost 1,000 players of the four provinces, Islamabad, FATA, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, PSL matches are expected to dominate the gala as the game of cricket has a large number of fans in the country. The dates of the inter-provincial games should not clashed with the PSL matches. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Olympic Association might not have any idea about the PSL matches when it was deciding about the dates for the extravaganza.

Neither the Punjab Olympic Association, nor the Sports Board Punjab has made any announcement about the awards for the medal winner athletes. Punjab has won the three editions of this event, which were twice held in Lahore and once in Peshawar. The fourth edition is being held after 10 years, mainly due to two aspects - poor law and order situation in the country and fighting between the government and the Pakistan Olympic Association from 2012 to 2016.

The high-goal season of the Lahore Polo Club is going to end with the final of the Quaid-i-Azam Gold Cup National Championship on Sunday. After the event, low goal tournaments will be staged for sometime before finally closing down activities at the polo club. Like past, many polo players from Argentina came to Lahore and played matches. They will leave Pakistan after the final of the Gold Cup.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2018