LAHORE, Sept 25: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) top officials appear to be somewhat perplexed over the matter of selecting squads for next month’s Pentangular Cup and have summoned a meeting at Islamabad on Saturday in order to sort out the matter.

Sources told Dawn that earlier the PCB had decided to follow the previous system to field the five teams — from the four provinces with one from Islamabad. But a few bad experiences in the previous editions have raised various questions from different quarters, forcing the board to work on a new formula.

Sources said the main problem was the Balochistan and NWFP outfits which do not have many competitive cricketers to face stronger teams from Punjab and Sindh. It was because of these two teams that the competitive level of the tournament in the last two editions had left much to be desired.

Furthermore, sources said, Balochistan even failed to produce as few as 15 first-class cricketers for the high-profile competition. So to bring the Balochistan team up to the standard, 10 of its players were picked from the Multan region, with just five from the province itself.

Still, as per the rules and regulation, the captain had to be chosen from Balochistan but since more players hailed from the Multan region in the playing XI, the captain’s role in the last editions lost much of its effectiveness.

Then there were also some reports of a brawl between the Balochistan and Multan players due to some odd decisions made by the captain.

As far as the NWFP province was concerned, it had been picking overage players like Wajahatullah Wasti and Fazle Akbar who are clearly over the hill now. In comparison, Punjab, Sindh and Islamabad are much too strong teams which tilts the balance in their favour.

The meeting at Islamabad will discuss new and different ideas to make the tournament more competitive this season. A PCB official said that the new pattern of the Pentangular Cup could be changed along with the teams’ titles, which would carry the names of the former greats of the country like Fazal Mahmood, Imtiaz Ahmad and Imran Khan.

The captain of each team could be a top senior cricketer of Pakistan from amongst the likes of Shoaib Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousaf, Younis Khan and Shoaib Akhtar.

The official also said that the selectors would have to pick the best 75 players in the country to form the five teams for the event to make it more competitive. “It will definitely provide good competition in all matches, making the tournament a very tough one,” he said.

Furthermore, sources said picking the team for this year’s Pentangular Cup was a challenging task as the PCB is hosting it prior to the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy, unlike the previous years.

In the last two editions, the board had organised the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy first, followed by the Pentangular Cup, as this helped the selectors to pick the best players of that event for the Pentangular Cup. But the PCB now intends holding it from Oct 21 while deferring the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy till December.