Fazal Mahmood Inter-Club Cricket Tournament, a big activity of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), completed in a two-year span with the final played at the LCCA ground. The tournament is named after great Oval hero Fazal Mahmood who won many matches for Pakistan after the country got the Test status in 1952.

The conclusion of this event in which around 57,155 cricketers from across the country represented around 2,896 clubs was very encouraging due to positive response from the Pakistani players.

In the final, Karachi Cricket Club was represented by a good number of star cricketers like Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmad, Asad Shafiq, Shan Masood, Anwar Ali and upcoming Ali Asad and Ramiz Junior. They won the final defeating Tony Club, Sialkot, which was missing two key players, namely their captain Shoaib Malik and Haris Sohail, for different reasons.

The PCB started the tournament last year in June and it was to complete by the end of December. But it failed to meet the deadline because a good number of entries of the clubs. Still some districts like Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and few more could not hold matches.

The man in charge of the project, Aizad Sayed, said the record and data of each match and player were saved in specially designed software. He said if the PCB’s think tank would take interest to properly use the software to monitor the performance in future, it would extend a great help to produce good results. He said among the total players, 900 were U-19 of age.

Aizad claimed 2,300 matches were played in which 600 centuries were scored. The services of 1,100 umpires were also hired to conduct the matches. He further claimed the tournament might be a new world record in terms of size.

PCB chairman Najam Sethi, whose position has been under the discussion since PTI won the general election, was the chief guest. Though a good number of media had reached the LCCA ground with a hope of getting an opportunity to have a talk with Mr Seth about his future as chairman, they all failed to get answer to any of the volley of the questions. A change in the PCB chairman slot is largely expected; despite the fact the board had earned some significant achievements under Sethi’s leadership.

Entry of the poor quality players was noticed in the 3rd Punjab National Squash Championship which ended last week with Waqas Mehboob of the Pakistan Air Force winning it, clinching the title from Kashif Asif of the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited.

Just 20 players played the main round and among them four qualified for it and remaining 16 came on the basis of their national ranking.

The poor showing of the players does not show a good picture about the game of squash. A good number of players from Lahore and Peshawar could make an entry to the event. The thin participation must be alarming for the Punjab Squash Association, which in the past has organized many good tournaments besides launching national league with a big bang.

The Punjab caretaker government made a wrong decision of allowing the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to hold a musical concert at the National Hockey Stadium on the weekend. The hockey Astroturf may be damaged as a good number of fans are expected to see the performances of popular singers. Everyone was surprised at the decision of the government since a better and suitable place of Alhamra Cultural Complex is also available in the Nishtar Sports Complex where the hockey stadium is located. More interestingly, the Alhamra complex is specially meant for cultural activities.

The Astroturf has been a very precious property of a hockey stadium as the process of its purchase from the international market and then to lay it takes a long time. And in case of any damage to the turf, hockey activities at the stadium may be hit at large.

Ayear-long activity of the Pakistan Cricket Board in the spot-fixing case also ended when the last cricketer Nasir Jamshed was banned for 10 years in a spot-fixing case of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) that emerged in 2017.

Five players were penalised in this case but Nasir received the heaviest punishment of 10 years ban. Sharjeel Khan (five years with two and half years suspended period), Khalid Latif (five years), Shazaib Hasan (four years) and Muhammad Irfan got six months ban for being involved in this case.

A special Anti-Corruption Tribunal of the PCB announced the punishments after starting the hearing on March 5, 2017. The PCB, no doubt, has borne expenses in millions to conduct these hirings as hefty amounts were paid to each member of the tribunal and then to the appellate tribunal, too.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2018