KARACHI: The 2022-23 edition of Pakistan’s flagship domestic cricket tournament Quaid-i-Azam Trophy gets underway at three different venues on Tuesday, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced Monday.

The country’s six provincial cricket association sides will play each other twice during the tournament on double round-robin basis before the final, scheduled to be played from November 26-30. The venue for the final will be announced in due course.

The Trophy kicks off with defending champions Khyber Pakhtunkhwa taking on Balochistan, Central Punjab clashing against Sindh and Northern playing Southern Punjab at the Abbotababad Stadium, Pindi Cricket Stadium and Faisalabad’s Iqbal Stadium respectively.

The three venues will host the first five rounds of the event before it shifts to Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium and Multan Cricket Stadium.

Islamabad and Karachi, usual venues for the event in the past, have been ruled out to host the Trophy matches.

However, Karachi, along with Quetta will be home to matches of the Cricket Associations Championship — a second XI four-day event for the participating associations — which also starts Tuesday.

The PCB said the squads for both tournaments have been finalised by national men’s chief selector Mohammad Wasim in consultation with the six Cricket Associations.

Pakistan internationals Yasir Shah, Azhar Ali, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Hasan Ali and Umar Amin will lead Balochistan, Central Punjab, Sindh, Souther Punjab and Northern respectively. Khalid Usman will be the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa captain. A number of matches of the tournament will be streamed online.

“The first eight-round matches from Pindi Cricket Stadium, Rawalpindi will be captured by nine High-Definition cameras and beamed across the globe through PCB’s official YouTube channel,” said a PCB press release. “The live-stream schedule for the last two rounds will be shared in due course, while the final will be televised on PTV Sports.”

The latest edition of the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy will see players receive increased amount of monetary incentives. Playing members will earn Rs100,000 per match — increase of Rs40,000 from the previous edition — while non-playing members will have their match fees increased by Rs16,000 to Rs40,000.

The increased match fees will be applied across all the domestic tournaments of the calendar, both first XI and second XI. More importantly, the PCB also decided to raise the monthly retainers of the players with domestic contracts.

The retainers for players in Category A+ have been increased by 20 per cent to Rs300,000 whiel Category A players will be paid Rs15,000 more than what they did last season.

Players in Category B and D of the domestic contracts will receive a pay raise of Rs10,000 while Category C players’ compensation will be increased by Rs5000.

“The PCB that has recently increased the match fees for its players featuring in the domestic cricket as part of its efforts to incentivise and reward top-performing cricketers, has put PKR17million on offer for the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy with the champion side grabbing PKR10million and runner-up bagging PKR5million,” read the PCB statement.

“The top-performers — player of the tournament, best batter, best bowler and best wicket-keeper — will pocket PKR500,000 each.

“The player of the final will be awarded PKR50,000.”

Quaid-i-Azam Trophy 2022-23 squads:

BALOCHISTAN: Yasir Shah (c), Azeem Ghumman, Haris Sohail, Abdul Wahid Bangalzai, Akif Javed, Ali Waqas, Ammad Butt, Asad Shafiq, Ayyaz Tassawar, Haseebullah, Hussain Talat, Imran Butt, Kashif Bhatti, Khurram Shehzad and Taj Wali

CENTRAL PUNJAB: Azhar Ali (c), Aamir Yameen, Abdullah Shafiq, Abid Ali, Ahmed Daniyal, Ahmed Shahzad, Ali Shan, Hunain Shah, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Saad, Qasim Akram, Tayyab Tahir, Umaid Asif, Usama Mir and Waqas Maqsood

KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA: Khalid Usman (c), Ashfaq Ahmed, Adil Amin, Arshad Iqbal, Arshad Ullah, Ihsanullah, Imran Khan Snr, Irfanullah Shah, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Sarwar Afridi, Nabi Gul, Rehan Afridi, Sahibzada Farhan, Sajid Khan and Waqar Ahmed

NORTHERN: Umar Amin (c), Abdul Faseh, Ather Mehmood, Faizan Riaz, Kashif Ali, Mehran Mumtaz, Mubasir Khan, Muhammad Huraira, Musa Khan, Nauman Ali, Rohail Nazir, Sarmad Bhatti, Umer Waheed, Waqas Ahmed and Zeeshan Malik

SINDH: Sarfaraz Ahmed (c), Abrar Ahmed, Asif Mehmood, Fawad Alam, Ghulam Mudassar, Khurram Manzoor, Mir Hamza, Muhammad Aasghar, Muhammad Umar, Omair Bin Yousuf, Saad Khan, Saim Ayub, Saud Shakeel, Syed Faraz Ali and Zahid Mahmood

SOUTHERN PUNJAB: Hasan Ali (c), Ahmed Bashir, Ali Usman, Hassan Khan, Imran Rafiq, Maqbool Ahmad, Muhammad Ilyas, Muhammad Imran Randhawa, Salman Ali Agha, Sameen Gull, Sharoon Siraj, Umer Siddique, Usman Salahuddin, Yousaf Baber and Zain Abbas.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2022