KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Monday unveiled a tentative 266-match programme for the upcoming domestic season with the country’s premier first-class tournament — Quaid-e-Azam Trophy — set to run from Oct 20 to Dec 29 this year with 31 matches to be held in Multan, Faisalabad, Lahore and Karachi.

Among the other top-tier competitions, the National T20 Cup will be staged from Sept 25 to Oct 13, with Multan staging first 18 fixtures and the remaining 15 in Lahore, before Pakistan’s white-ball series of three ODIs and five Twenty20 Internationals — against New Zealand — while the 50-over Pakistan Cup is set to be played from Feb 25 with Lahore hosting March 30 final. Faisalabad and Multan were among the venues announced for the double-league tournament.

The crowded home season — which also includes the seventh edition of the Pakistan Super League in January-February apart from the nine national-level events — will also see England visit Pakistan in the middle of October for a scheduled two-match T20 International series in Karachi before the two teams leave for the UAE, which along with Oman would host the T20 World Cup from Oct 17 to Nov 14. Moreover, West Indies (white-ball series) and Australia (Test and white-ball series) are also slated to tour Pakistan.

Another salient feature for 2021-22 season is the return of the one-day National Under-13 Cup which couldn’t be organised during the last season because of Covid-19. The 16-game event will be played on a single league from Feb 8 to 18 in Faisalabad.

The other two age-group tournaments have been expanded to 12 sides each in the coming season. The three-day and one-day National Under-19 Championships which will be held concurrently with the 62 matches to be played from Oct 3 to Nov 12 in Gujranwala, Islamabad, Muridke, Rawalpindi and Sialkot, while Rawalpindi will also host the single-league National Under-16 Cup 31-match event from March 8 to 19.

The newly-instituted City Cricket Association (CCA) two-day tournament is already underway in various cities and will end on Aug 22 with an Under-19 CCA competition to start from Sept 1. These events are considered gateway for players performing outstandingly to stake claims for induction in the CCA teams for senior and pathway tournaments with each CCA granted permission to field two teams in the Under-19 and Under-16 competitions.

According to Nadeem Khan, the PCB High Performance Director, the philosophy behind expanding the junior-level tournaments is to create more opportunities for budding cricketers to showcase their potential.

“Our aim is to increase the pool [of players] because emerging cricketers seldom get adequate opportunities at the grassroots level. Therefore from the coming season there’ll be two teams in the under-19 and under 16 competitions,” Nadeem told Dawn on Monday. “This change has been long overdue because previously there were complaints from a particular region that many talented young boys couldn’t play in the national competitions for this very reason.

“The objective behind this exercise is in line with the City Cricket Associations’ plans of reviving the game in clubs, schools and universities within their respective jurisdiction. The best players coming through the system would definitely stand best chance of being afforded with opportunities to express themselves in the national tournaments because our endeavour is to give exposure to the next generation.”

Nadeem was of the view that a quality-based competitive domestic season will also help the national selectors and coaches identify top performers who could be vying for spots in the Pakistan side across all three formats.

“We are hoping that like last season, it would be as competitive as possible because we want to see Pakistan domestic system produce mentally and physically tough who can be trusted to perform in all conditions against any opposition,” the former Test spinner remarked.

Meanwhile, In the competitions for six-team Cricket Association second XI sides, the 15-match T20 event will be played from Sept 15 to 22, the three-day 30-game tournament from Sept 28 to Nov 14 and the 50-over Challenge will have 15 fixtures from Nov 19 to 27.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2021