KARACHI, Nov 20 The Under-19 Regional Inter-District Cricket Tournament for women, which was scheduled to take place between Oct and Nov as per the calendar announced by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Women's Wing, finally commenced on Friday rather quietly and without any notification being issued by the PCB for the same.

When Dawn contacted Women's Wing Manager, the former hockey player Ayesha Ashhar, to inquire why PCB's media department failed to announce the schedule and other details regarding the events, she was of the opinion that it was not the PCB's responsibility but of the regional representatives.

“It is an inter-district tournament, which is quite different from national-level tournaments. The tournament is being held in 11 regions simultaneously and our regional representatives alone are responsible for them. This is not our concern and it only becomes our problem after reaching the national level,” she informed. “Still, I happen to know that several newspapers carried the schedule for Karachi's tourney,” she added. However, when quizzed as to which of the newspapers carried the reports, she said “I really wouldn't know.”

It must be mentioned here that it is entirely the PCB's responsibility to release the details of all the inter-district tournaments organised by the Board and a separate budget is allocated for each and every game for the purpose. In Karachi's case, the allocated budget is around Rs80,70,000.

Meanwhile, Regional Women's Representative Karachi Mrs Naz Alam Sherazi, when contacted, confirmed that two matches were held in the city on Friday. “Yes, we played two matches today,” she said while speaking to Dawn.

When asked which teams played the matches and what was the over format, she said “It is a Twenty20 tournament. Two matches were played on Friday. Zone III/IV Combined beat Zone I/II Combined when they easily chased the target of 125 runs given to them by Zone I/II Combined in 17.3 overs.”

“In the other match, Zone V/VI Combined beat Zone VII by 31 runs. Zone V/VI Combined batted first and set a target of 173 runs for Zone VII, which they failed to reach in 20 overs,” she added.

The matches were played on the outer field of the National Stadium Karachi (NSK).

When asked how come they failed to fax the score sheets of the matches to the media, Mrs Sherazi explained “We haven't been given many people for such errands. I am just one person handling so many things here. The budget allocated for this specific tournament is only a fraction of the sum announced for Karachi so I have been told to spend wisely.

“Still, the money is enough for providing the girls proper kits, transport, lunches and daily allowances. We are paying the players Rs300 and the officials Rs500 daily,” she concluded.

Saturday's fixtures Zone III/IV Combined v Zone V/VI Combined at 9.00pm; Zone I/II Combined v Zone VII at 1.30pm.