LAHORE: Despite the surge in coronavirus cases, the Pakistan Cricket Board isn’t appointing any doctor with the 93 teams participating in the Inter-City Cricket Tournament which starts in Central Punjab from July 16.

There are no team managers appointed as well to keep an eye on the players, if any Covid-19 symptoms arise.According to an official who attended the briefing to match officials by PCB’s Umpires’ Manager Bilal Qureshi on Wednesday, it is the job of the umpires and coaches and if any player displays any symptoms, he will be relieved from the team as it would not be possible for the PCB to conduct tests at any stage of the tournament.Bilal, however, was quoted by the official that the PCB might try to make arrangements with the district health authority for Covid testing.

The PCB, though, said in a news release that due to concussion guidelines and Covid-19 times “on-call doctors will be available to assist the players throughout the duration of the event as and when required”.

The PCB plans to hold the matches in 93 cities affiliated with six Cricket Associations namely Central Punjab, Southern Punjab, Northern, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

The grassroots activity is being held after a lapse of two years, as the PCB had not yet fully implemented its new constitution introduced two years back.

The PCB made no cuts on the match fees of umpires and scorers, as had been rumoured for the last few days.

“Not only will the players be professionally looked after by the PCB, the match officials will also be provided an environment where they can produce better performances and move up the ladder,” it added in the news release.

“”In this regard, they, along with the scorers, will receive the same match fee and allowances they had received when the tournament was last staged in the 2018-19 season.”The PCB also said the players will also receive PKR 5,000 match fee along with daily allowances, under the PCB policy of incentivizing and attracting talented cricketers.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2021