LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), while pressing ahead with its planned agenda of how to organise the Pakistan Super League in a meeting of the Board of Governors (BoG) held here on Saturday, reiterated that it will launch its own franchise-based T20 league in the UAE.

PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan, who attended the 36th BoG meeting held at the National Cricket Academy, said that the first season of the Pakistan Super League is scheduled to take place in the UAE next year.

The country’s cricket governing body has been planning for the first PSL since 2012 with the venue of the UAE always being at the back of the minds of PCB officials.

After successfully holding the Zimbabwe series here last month, it was expected that the PCB would hold the PSL in Pakistan to help revive further international cricket in the country but the Board seems unready to bring the PSL to Pakistan at the moment.

“In April this year, the PCB engaged Repucom — a globally trusted company with extensive experience in the sports industry — in a consultancy role,” a PCB press release stated.

“Based on the company’s preliminary findings, the BoG discussed three major questions related to the league. It was decided in principle that the PCB will organise the league on its own and will not outsource it to any organisation.

“It was also unanimously decided that the first edition of the league will take place in the UAE with an aim of attracting maximum number of foreign players. The BoG discussed the TOR and decided that the league’s lead manager should be a leading professional of international repute,” it said.

However, the PCB did not announce any tentative dates for the franchise-based tournament with the BoG without giving any details approving recommendations for domestic cricket drawn up by its Cricket Committee headed by Shakeel Ahmed Sheikh along with members Iqbal Qasim and Intikhab Alam.

Interestingly, Shakeel a year before with the support of the-then chairman Najam Sethi had approved a five-year domestic plan, saying consistency was the need of the hour. Incumbent chairman Shaharyar then was also a member of the BoG.

However, after one year cricket committee chairman Shakeel who has been running the affairs of the domestic cricket for last almost four years has come up with other recommendations in connection with the domestic cricket.

The meeting as per the PCB press statement was also attended by executive committee chairman Najam Sethi, Zafar Mehmood of Wapda, cricket committee chairman Shakeel Ahmed Sheikh, Gul Zada (Peshawar region), Mansoor Masood Khan (UBL), Professor Ijaz Ahmed Faruqi (Karachi region) and Amjad Latif (SNGPL).

Chief operating officer of the PCB Subhan Ahmed and CFO Badar Manzoor Khan were also present.

Meanwhile, all BoG members congratulated PCB officials on successfully organising the Zimbabwe series. “We are extremely grateful to the government, police and all other security agencies for the cooperation they extended during the series which was a great message for other teams to tour Pakistan in the future,” said the PCB chairman.

The press release further stated: “As part of a broader plan for the future, PCB chairman laid stress on improving grassroots cricket, fitness standards besides making domestic cricket more competitive. He also invited the Board members to share their suggestions in this regard.

“The Board members congratulated Pakistan’s iconic batsman, Zaheer Abbas on being named as the next ICC President. They also appreciated Sethi’s gesture of withdrawing his name to honour a Pakistani cricketer,” it concluded.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2015

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