LAHORE: Pakistan’s domestic cricket structure based on departments and regions will be restored by Feb 15, for which the interim Management Committee (MC) of the Pakistan Cricket Board has devised a plan besides preparing the schedule of activities starting with the national U-13 event, a PCB official told Dawn.

“The work on the domestic structure is in progress on a fast track. The PCB has received good response from several departments which have shown interest to restore their cricket teams; in this regard Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) has also announced that the trials to select its team will be held on Jan 24 in Islamabad,” Shakil Sheikh, one of the key members of the 14-member PCB Management Committee, exclusively told Dawn on Wednesday.

“Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), Wapda and KRL have also contacted the PCB and are ready to restore their [cricket] teams. Moreover, there are strong chances that United Bank Limited (UBL) will also return to the game as their authorities have also shown enthusiasm to restore their cricket team, which they had abolished several years ago,” Shakil revealed.

“Overall, more than 25 departments are showing interest to restore their teams for Grade-I and Grade-II cricket.

“Furthermore, a proposal is being considered, to ask the departments to form their [own] under-19 teams. This will enable these departments to provide a professional platform to young cricketers which will help in producing more polished players for the national team in future,” said Shakil, the former head of the PCB Cricket Committee.

“All the [related] groundwork has been prepared and after PCB chief Najam Sethi returns home from the UAE, the old system under the PCB constitution of 2014 will be restored. All this will take [about] three weeks and most probably the basic job of the MC will be have been completed by Feb 15,” he added.

According to Shakil, in the new structure eight departments and as many regional teams would compete in first-class cricket while the remaining eight departments and regions would play Grade-II cricket.

Responding to a question regarding the fate of around 200 groundsmen and curators who lost their jobs when the province-based six-team domestic structure replaced regional and departmental cricket as the PCB implemented the new constitution on Aug 19, 2019, Shakil said with the restoration of the regional bodies, every region would get 15 employees from the PCB including groundsmen and curators.

“This will give a bigger chance to groundsmen and curators to regain their jobs as now they will have 16 regions to apply instead of only six province-based set-up,” he said.

While underlining that MC’s main job was to restore departmental and regional cricket, Shakil said the PCB had received encouraging reports that the number of players at the club level had increased remarkably as now they had more opportunities to earn money, he underlined.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2023