LAHORE: Pakistan Railways have abolished their cricket team following the failure to qualify for Patron’s Trophy Grade-I in 2018-19 season.

It is learnt that the Railways chairman disbanded the team due to their poor show in the Patron’s Trophy Grade-II, while terming the activity “waste of funds”.

Interestingly, Railways department is included in the list of 11 government organisations which has been assigned the job by the prime minister to sponsor any of the six provincial teams, proposed under the new domestic structure. The revamped structure is most likely to be implemented by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) from the 2019-20 season.

The new system is set to replace the existing system based on 16 regional teams.

Dawn also learnt that Railways have terminated the services of all their cricketers after disbanding the team which enabled the organisation to save Rs7.5 million. This amount is a major chunk of the Railways’ overall sports budget of Rs30.5 million.

The Railways have been caring the players of 35 other disciplines, barring cricket, from this scanty-looking budget.

A giant force in the country’s sports arena from 1960 until 1980s, Railways in recent years significantly lost their ranking in sports as Army, Wapda, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and Sui Southern Gas Pipelines gradually became more active departments of the public sector, playing leading role in the country’s sports.

Though the prime minister has also included Railways in the list of 11 institutions to sponsor the proposed provincial teams, presently it looks very difficult for a financially weak Railways to sponsor any of the outfits.

According to a recent statement made by the Federal Minister for Rail­ways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the annual deficit of the department stands at Rs32 billion, reduced from the Rs36 billion loss suffered during the last ten months.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2019