LAHORE: Star-studded Pakistan Cricket Club of Karachi will take on the rather starless Tony Club of Sialkot in the final of the 1st Fazal Mahmood Inter-Club Cricket Championships at the LCCA Ground here on Friday.

Led by Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed, Karachi’s arguably topmost club side also includes a number of other internationals such as Asad Shafiq, Shan Masood and Rameez Raja and budding fast bowler Mir Hamza.

In contrast, Tony Club will be sorely missing former Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik — who is currently playing in the Caribbean Premier League — while Haris Sohail is unavailable because of family commitments.

Meanwhile, Aizad Sayid, the mastermind of this tournament in which a staggering 2,896 clubs from all over the country participated claimed that it might be the biggest ever tournament in the history of the cricket.

He said overall a total of 2,300 matches were played after it was launched last year but the semi-finals and final were delayed due to technical issues.

Aizad further said 57,155 players competed for their respective clubs and 9,000 of them were under-19. The complete data of each and every competing player had been stored in computer so that the data would serve many purposes in order to bring improvement at the grassroots level.

It may be mentioned here that former PCB chairman Shaharyar Mohammad Khan took initiated this event along with the A.H. Kardar Cup inter-school championship last year.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2018