KARACHI: While Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) proved their mettle yet again as the powerhouse of Pakistan domestic cricket by cantering to a fourth successive national title, there are big question marks over the format used for the just-concluded Quaid-i-Azam Trophy National Cricket Championship, which brought down curtains on the 2015-16 first-class season.

The star-studded SNGPL retained the Quaid Trophy crown with a clinical six-wicket defeat of United Bank Limited (UBL) with five full sessions to spare in the day-night final here at the National Stadium.

The use of Kookaburra pink balls — now deemed as the future of Test cricket to an extent after Australia hosted New Zealand in the historic floodlit Adelaide Test last November and Pakistan set to play another Down Under next season — in the title-deciding match met with mixed response from both captains, Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan.

The two senior pros welcomed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) decision to trial the pink balls for the second time in a first-class final but minced no words in stating that all teams should have a taste of partly playing with these balls during the season. A fair assessment no doubt and the PCB think-tank must plan accordingly when scheduling the next season.

There are five fully-equipped Test centres in the country — Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi — where day-night Quaid Trophy preliminary-round matches can easily be held with at least two such fixtures for all participating teams. The main domestic season normally starts in October and there won’t be issues pertaining to dew factors disrupting play arising if the cricket board plans the schedule shrewdly.

Ideally, the day-night matches in upcountry centres can be played in the early rounds of the championship to ensure wintry conditions ruining the whole exercise itself. This would be the ideal preparation that players require, as emphasised by Misbah and Younis, to get used to combating the pink balls.

This was the exactly the essence that was sorely missed in the recent final where a number of players from both teams whispered their scepticism at having to play with pink balls without adequate preparation.

The main complaint, one heard, was sighting the balls when the floodlights made their full impact and the pace bowlers generated extraordinary swing and seam movements.

Unsurprisingly, as soon as the lights on the six towers at the National Stadium were switched on, the batsmen in particular started to struggle because their vision was impaired to a large extent and often found it difficult to eye the ball properly in flight. Concentrating on the job at hand became a massive challenge for the team batting, especially in the hour leading to the 40-minute dinner break at 6:20pm and the last session of the first three days.

And since the match finished at 4:17pm on day four, there was no issue with the artificial lights because they were not required at all as Azhar Ali and Misbah had done their bits by then!

Probably in hindsight, keeping an eye on the flight of the pink ball also became a notable problem for the umpires as well. Ahmed Shahab made at least three awful mistakes for which he was roundly ridiculed by those reporting on the final.

But considering the tough circumstances in which poor Ahmed had to operate, he stands to get the benefit of doubt, provided if he has the extraordinary virtues of a top-class umpire — as gauged by the appointing authority in the PCB who has him as one of Pakistan’s three representatives on the ICC international panel.

These blunders came to surface only because the final was being televised. There were several other instances during the first-class season where teams expressed unhappiness at the substandard level of umpiring. The umpires officiating escaped censure simply because those matches were not beamed live.

The induction of Bilal Qureshi as the umpires/referees manager is a welcome change because, at last, somebody among the top PCB brass has taken notice of the allegedly unreported irregularities and favouritism committed in that department.

A former Grade-II umpire on the domestic panel, Bilal is reputed to be a forthright man who abhors corrupt practices and one who has been brought in to improve the system and do justice to those deserving match officials who otherwise have nowhere to go since they don’t belong to a powerful lobby which has been dictating terms and unfairly promoting its candidates for international postings while showing negligible reverence for simple expressions like merit and transparency.

After Pakistan’s exit at the quarter-final stage of the 2015 World Cup, PCB chairman Shaharyar Mohammad Khan called for a revised domestic cricket structure which necessitated drastic reduction of competing teams in the top tier tournament. As a result of the new decree, separate qualifying events were held for regions and departments.

Inevitably, major casualties were reported and among them established departments like PIA, State Bank and ZTBL missed out qualifying for the main round of the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy, while Karachi had just one outfit representing the largest city in the premier first-class competition of Pakistan after the Blues team missed out at the qualifying stage.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) didn’t achieve much in their maiden season of first-class cricket, winning just one match out of seven pool fixtures with four defeats. Their only success was noteworthy since it was achieved against a departmental side, KRL who were outgunned by 10 wickets at Sialkot’s Jinnah Stadium.

But for sheer entertainment, Fata were the team of the championship as they played with real gusto and were fearless throughout.

Their skipper Fawad Khan was an inspirational leader who thrashed a remarkable 23 championship sixes — the next highest being UBL all-rounder Hammad Azam who sent the ball 11 times out of the ground.

For sheer courage, the team of the tournament was Lahore Blues — who like Fata, KRL and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) had to come through the qualifiers — who were just one win away from reaching the final when eventual champions SNGPL outclassed them by innings and 325 runs in the Super Eight stage tie at the National Stadium.

Individually, Asif Zakir of SSGC topped the batting chart with 791 runs with team-mate Umar Amin second (763) and NBP’s Akbar-ur-Rehman third with 761 and Zain Abbas of KRL fourth (730).

They were the only ones to cross the 700-run mark. While three of them were rewarded with places in the Pakistan ‘A’ squad for the upcoming one-day series against England Lions in Dubai, Akbar was surprisingly overlooked despite having the best strike-rate (74.17) among the quartet.

KRL paceman Mohammad Abbas was the only one to claim 50 or more championship wickets. The 23-year-old from Sialkot grabbed 61 to get selected in the Pakistan ‘A’ squad which will be led by Umar Amin.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2016