PCB announces domestic schedule for 2002-03 season

The Chairman of the PCB Cricket Management Committee, Iqbal Qasim on Monday announced the PCB Domestic Schedule for the next season at a press conference held at the PCB Head Office, Gaddafi Stadium Lahore.

The text of the official statement made by him is attached.

On behalf of Cricket Management Committee of PCB, we have the honour to unfold the PCB Domestic schedule for the forthcoming season 2002-2003.

Generally, the Domestic Cricket in Pakistan has been the subject of bitter criticism since its inception. Whenever our national team faced debacle in a Tests series or World Cup, the Domestic Cricket was and is made the scapegoat blaming for its faulty structure. After thorough study of our Domestic Structure from the inception of BCCP in 1948, one can easily find out that there can only be two formats as follows: -

1. Associations and Departments teams playing tournament separately. This format continued since 1988 through 1998 and then 2000-2002

Or
2. Associations and Departments team playing jointly in one tournament.

Both systems have their own merits and demerits.

ASSOCIATIONS / DEPARTMENTS PLAYING SEPARATELY

MERITS:

1. The players have more chances to play first class matches i.e from Departments as well from their respective Associations.
2. The Departmental tournament becomes more competitive whereas Associations tournaments lack competition.

DEMERITS:

1. Inclusion of Departmental players in the Associations teams denied the chances of young promising players to play at top level. Lack of competitive cricket among Associations (except few).
2. The discarded Test Cricketers or Veteran first class players surfaced again and again, at the same time and young cricketer managed to do well in batting and bowling department in one season and create false impression. Experience revealed that during last many years a number of players have been tried out on this basis of their performance in QAT and most of them faded out, due to their faulty technique, or their inability to cope with required standard of the game.

ASSOCIATIONS/DEPARTMENTS TEAM PLAYING JOINTLY

MERITS:

1. Large number of young and promising player will get a chance to play first class cricket from respective Association and their talent
be tested out against Departmental teams consisting of experienced bowlers and batsmen.
2. The promising / talented players of Associations will learn better skills from better player of Departments while playing together.

DEMERITS:

1. Association while playing with Department may not win tournament and face difficulties against competitive bowling and batting. However, the standard of Association will improve with passage of time.

The new format for the forthcoming season 2002-2003 has been formulated in light of the suggestions and recommendations of seminar on Domestic Structure organized by the PCB on 4th May 2002. The stalwarts of past and present era and well known cricketing personalities like Fazal Mahmood, Hanif Muhamamd, Waqar Hassan, Javed Burki, Saeed Ahmad, Intikhab Alam, Wasim Bari, Ramiz Raja, Aamir Sohail, Abdul Qadir, Haroon Rashid, Aaqib Javed, Mudassar Nazar, Ejaz Butt, Sultan Rana, Gul Hameed Bhatti, Sirajul Islam Bukhari, Khawaja Zafar and Ashraf Qureshi attended the seminar.

The salient features of the seminar were: -

1. Stress to ensure the quality of first class cricket.
2. The idea of Super League comprising top players of the country be held.
3. The selection of Association teams should be made on merit.

The Domestic Structure 2002-2003 is attached

The highlights of the Domestic Structure 2002-2003 is as under: -

FIRST CLASS CRICKET: -

To improve the quality of first class cricket: -

1. Introduction of Super League to be played among the top players of the country (First Class plus One day)
2. Separate first class tournament of Associations and Departments be merged into one tournament i.e QAT. Bottom team of Department plus one bottom team of Association will be relegated to Kardar Trophy and Cornelius Trophy.
3. PCB Eleven, consisting of second string of National players will participate in QAT.
4. Keeping in view the popularity of One day tournament world over, due importance has given to domestic tournament and only 16 top teams (8 Associations Plus 8 Departments) of QAT will play One Day tournament and it will be called 'Patron's Cup'.

NON FIRST CLASS: -
8 new districts have been granted the playing rights on the basis of availability of cricket set up. (Killa Abdullah, Khairpur, Bahawalnagar, Bhakkar, Swabi, Charsada, Mansehra and Chitral)

KARDAR TROPHY:
The Patron's Trophy Grade-II has been renamed as Kardar Trophy to pay tribute to the first Pakistan Test Captain and former Chairman BCCP Mr. A. H Kardar.

CORNELIUS TROPHY:
In QAT Grade-II 43 teams participated in the last Domestic season including 20 teams of new districts. In order to improve the quality of this tournament, the duration has been increased from 2 to 3 days and two bottom teams of each pool have been pulled out and placed in the new tournament i.e PCB Trophy. QAT Grade-II has been renamed after Late Justice Cornelius, Former Chairman of the then BCCP, now PCB.

PCB TROPHY:
A new tournament has been introduced, comprising of 20 bottom teams of QAT G-II and 8 new districts have been given playing rights. Total of 28 teams will participate in PCB Trophy. The duration of this tournament is of 2 day.

Winner of the Kardar Trophy and Cornelius Trophy will be upgraded to QAT, in the next domestic season.

JUNIOR COMPETITION

UNDER-19 GRADE-I
To give due importance to One Day Tournament at grass root level, the Under-19 One Day tournament will be held separately, so that Association may select fresh team of junior players who are good in one day competition. Total of 12 teams of Associations are placed in 3 group and top teams of each group will play triangular series on double league basis preferably at GSL.

UNDER-19 GRADE-II
To have competitive spirit and to enhance the quality of Under-19 G-II, the two bottom teams of each group have been pulled out, and duration of the tournament has been increased from 2 to 3 days.

UNDER-19 GRADE-III
A new tournament has been introduced comprising of 19 bottom teams of Under-19 G-II plus 8 new districts have been given playing rights. Total of 27 teams will participate in Under-19 Grade-III tournament. This will be of One Day duration.

Further more, the Rules plus Playing Conditions are amended as under:

1. Department and Associations will submit 20 names of their player for registration and rest of the players will be allowed to play for any Association as per rules.

A player can play for only one Association in all domestic tournaments in one domestic season except players participated in Under-19 competition, are exempted and can represent any Association in QAT Trophy or Cornelius Trophy or PCB Trophy as local player, if eligible under rules or as a guest player. For this a residential qualification period has been reduced from one year to six months. Once he has represented any Association in QAT, Cornelius and PCB Trophy, then he can not play for any other Association during the same domestic season.

FIRST CLASS TOURNAMENTS

Tournament	Status	Duration of Tourament	No. of Teams	No. of Matches	Duration per Match	Mode of Tournament
SUPER LEAGUE HOME AND AWAY	First Class	25th March 2003 to 18th May 2003	4	13	4 Day	Double League
QUAID-E-AZAM TROPHY	First Class (Associations+ Departments+PCB XI)	10th Dec. 2002 to 10th Feb 2003	25	73	4 Day	4 Groups (Pool Matches on league basis)
TOTAL MATCHES				86

ONE DAY TOURNAMENTS

Tournament	Status	Duration of Tourament	No. of Teams	No. of Matches	Duration per Match	Mode of Tournament
SUPER LEAGUE HOME AND AWAY	Non First Class	25th March 2003 to 18th May 2003	4	13	One Day	Double League
PATRON'S CUP (National One Day)	Non First Class	20th Feb. 2003 to 11th March 2003	16	59	One Day	2 Groups
TOTAL MATCHES				72

NON FIRST CLASS TOURNAMENTS

Tournament	Status	Duration of Tourament	No. of Teams	No. of Matches	Duration per Match	Mode of Tournament
KARDAR TROPHY(PATRON'S TROPHY G-II)	Non First Class	9th Oct 2002 to 2nd Nov 2002	9	17	3 Day	2 Groups
CORNELIUS TROPHY(QAT G-II)	Non First Class	21st Jan. 2003 to 24th Feb 2003	23	47	3 Day	Region Wise
PCB TROPHY (NEW ADDITION GRADE-III)	Non First Class	16th Feb. 2003 to 13th March 2003	28	54	2 Day	Region Wise
TOTAL MATCHES				118

JUNIOR COMPETITIONS

Tournament	Status	Duration of Tourament	No. of Teams	No. of Matches	Duration per Match	Mode of Tournament
U-19 GRADE-I	Non First Class	1st Sep to 4th Oct 2002	12	33	3 Day	2 Groups
U-19 GRADE-I	Non First Class	7th to 22nd Oct 2002	12	25	One Day	3 Groups
U-19 GRADE-II	Non First Class	1st Sep to 9th Oct 2002	26	60	3 Day	Region Wise
U-19 GRADE-III	Non First Class	26th Sep to 12th Oct 2002	27	50	One Day	Region Wise
TOTAL MATCHES				168

TOURNAMENT (DATE WISE)

1) UNDER-19 GRADE-I (3 DAY)	1ST SEPTEMBER - 4TH OCTOBER 2002
2) UNDER-19 GRADE-II (3 DAY)	1ST SEPTEMBER - 14TH OCTOBER 2002
3) UNDER-19 GRADE-III (ONE DAY)	26TH SEPTEMBER - 12TH OCTOBER 2002
(NEW INDUCTION)
4) KARDAR TROPHY (3 DAY)	9TH OCTOBER - 2ND NOVEMBER 2002
(PREVIOUS NAME PATRON'S TROPHY G-II)
RAMZAN BREAK
5) QUAID-E-AZAM TROPHY	10TH DECEMBER - 10TH FEBRUARY 2003
6) CORNELIUS TROPHY (3 DAY )	21ST JANUARY - 24TH FEBRUARY 2003
(PREVIOUS NAME QUAID-E-AZAM TROPHY G-II)
7) PCB TROPHY (2 DAY)	16TH FEBRUARY - 13TH MARCH 2003
(NEW INDUCTION)
8) PATRON'S CUP (ONE DAY)	20TH FEBRUARY - 11TH MARCH 2002
(PREVIOUS NAME ONE DAY NATIONAL TOURNAMENT)
9) SUPER LEAGUE	25TH MARCH - 18TH MAY 2003
(ONE DAY + 4 DAY)

PROPOSED TEAMS UNDER-19

GRADE - I LCCA(W) LCCA(B) KCCA(W) KCCA(B) BAHAWALPUR SHEIKHUPURA QUETTA PESHAWAR RAWALPINDI KOHAT FATA ISLAMABAD

GRADE - II SINDH LARKANA SHIKARPUR MIRPURKHAS HYDERABAD BADIN SUKKUR NWFP AJK MARDAN HARIPUR BANNU D.I.KHAN BALUCHISTAN CHAGHI TURBAT SIBI PISHIN PUNJAB MULTAN R.Y.KHAN OKARA KASUR SARGODHA ATTOCK JEHLUM SIALKOT GUJRAT FAISALABAD GUJRANWALA TOTAL NO. OF TEAMS 26

GRADE - III SINDH NAWABSHAH JACOBABAD DADU THATTA KHAIRPUR (NEW) NWFP SWAT NORTHERN AREAS NOWSHEHRA ABBOTTABAD MANSEHRA (NEW) CHITRAL (NEW) CHARSADA (NEW) SWABI (NEW) BALUCHISTAN KALAT NASEERABAD LORALAI QILLA ABDULLAH (NEW) PUNJAB D.G.KHAN RAJANPUR SAHIWAL VEHARI MIANWALI JHANG HAFIZABAD KHANEWAL BAHAWALNAGAR (NEW) BHAKKAR (NEW) TOTAL NO. OF TEAMS 27

QUAID-E-AZAM TROPHY LCCA(W) LCCA(B) KCCA(W) KCCA(B) SHEIKHUPURA RAWALPINDI SARGODHA DADU PESHAWAR MULTAN BAHAWALPUR GUJRANWALA FAISALABAD SIALKOT HABIB BANK PIA CUSTOM ABL KRL NBP ADBP SERVICE INDUSTRIES PPWD WAPDA PCB ELEVEN

KARDAR TROPHY (PREVIOUS NAME PAT G-II) ARL SAGA SPORTS KESC PTCL SUI GAS PAKISTAN ARMY PAF UGC PEB EIGHT NEW DISTRICTS KHAIRPUR MANSEHRA CHITRAL CHARSADA SWABI QILLA ABDULLAH BAHAWALNAGAR BHAKKAR