PCB emphasizes quality in new domestic structure

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Saturday introduced what it termed merit-based high standard domestic structure to have quality cricketers backing up the national team, but how accountability and merit is maintained, is yet to be seen after this wholesome revamp.The PCB’s entire emphasis is on quality not quantity and any cricketer who wants to break into this structure is to perform. As per the PCB officials claim, the cricketers did not need to have sponsors, corporate entity, influential politicians, Quaid-e-Azam pictured bills or strong regional officials backing them up, but only his talent and skills would earn them graduation into the upper teams.Though this big domestic revamp has been launched with the same bunch of officials holding offices at the level from the bottom to the top, the PCB chairman speaks of zero tolerance. With no independent scrutiny committee for check and balance at place, the only recommendation accepted in selection was taken from the Respected Cricketers Committee, formed recently.In the new structure, PCB will be fully funding the initial phase with billions of rupees budget and then go for a review after a year to move forward.Mani said that they want quality cricket not quantity cricket. He further stated that the entire onus and responsibility will be on the regions to deliver and if there will be success then this system would run automatically.“Nothing could be achieved overnight but surely when there is quality there will be better results,” said Mani.As there is no proper infrastructure at place for clubs and cities, in this six teams structure, Punjab has been divided into two parts Central and South while the other teams would be of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Northern Areas.Central Punjab will be covering the cities and surrounding areas of Lahore (which will have three teams), Faisalabad and Sialkot, Southern Punjab would comprise of Multan and Bahawalpur. Similarly, Balochistan have in its wings cities of Dera Murad Jamali and Quetta, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa engulfs Peshawar, Fata and Abbottabad, Sindh would loop in Karachi, Hyderabad and Larkana while Northern Areas areas are Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.The big cities like Lahore and Karachi will have three and seven teams respectively as of their zones and population while the other cities will have representations by their one city team.Pundits believe it’s a copy paste of an English cricket system because that is why an Englishman David has been imported here to also restructure the National Cricket Academy and its sub-ordinate academies, which were once believed the top arena of cricketers development, into High Performance Centres.As of the women cricket, there is no attachment of them with this structure. The PCB has promised to raise their level and would be influencing the PSL franchises to launch a talent hunt and raise their pool. It plans to initiate a programme for girls at school level only to have a solid and fear-free base of female cricket.On paper the new structure sounds best of the best and it is hoped it will also eradicate favouritism and identify performance and merit.But If those players who performed are not selected to go onto the next respective level, will the selectors or the beacon of this structure be held accountable.It there is accountability, only then players should feel more relaxed and focus on their performances, knowing that there will be selection on merit.On the other hand, this new system is believed a replica of a developed country where there is a stipend for every unemployed. Not to speak of the unemployment the new structure would spread and damage it would do to the vision of 10 million jobs the chief patron of PCB Prime Minister Imran Khan have announced to create.It would have been a better job had Pakistan cricket a structure where the cricketers of every age are groomed to a level that there is quality developed in every single one of them instead of singling them out and weeding them apart.As of transparency, in other Test playing countries, every club have its own cricket field who have teams from under-9 to under-19 and whoever performs well gets promoted in their main teams and eventually who perform well gets a spot in the national team. Which is very transparent, but will there be transparency here when the top positions are filled in with influence of the influential. One can only hope and pray, Pakistan cricket and sports alike also gets same transparent structure.

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