LAHORE: Only six departmental teams, instead of eight, have been invited to participate in the President’s Trophy first-class tournament and Pakistan Cup one-day event which will be held from Dec 16, 2023 and April 18, 2024, respectively.

These will be the first domestic cricket events featuring departments, which were reinstated after restoration of the 2014 PCB constitution last year.

This constitution replaced the 2019 constitution under which departmental and regional cricket had been abolished at first-class level to reduce the competition it to just six provincial cricket associations.

Under the 2014 PCB constitution, eight regional and as many departmental teams were participating in the first-class tournament. But now the letter of participation has been sent to only six departments — Khan Research Laboratory (KRL), State Bank of Pakistan, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, Sui Southern Gas Company, Wapda and PTV.

It seems after the restoration of departmental cricket, poor response was recei­v­ed from the departments playing first-class cricket in 2018 for the first edition after the restoration of the constitution.

The last event of departmental cricket was played in 2018 under the 2014 PCB constitution in which State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) won the Grade-II title after which they were promoted to the first-class event of the President’s Trophy 2023-24.

To bring the number of participating departments to eight, the PCB could have included the finalist team of 2018, the Higher Education Commission (HEC), along with the SBP and semi-finalists Pakistan Navy but it preferred to run the President’s Trophy with six departments.

Moreover, the PCB has asked all the six departments to send the names of 20 players each who will participate in both the President’s Trophy (four-day event) and the Pakistan Cup (one-day competition).

In contrast, the PCB had allowed 30 players in each team, which participated in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy and the One-day Cup.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2023