Pentangular returns after 10-year absence

The high profile Pentangular Cricket Championship is being revived this season, almost 10 years after it was discontinued. The first two matches of this first-class domestic competition, in which the country's five leading teams participate, begin on Thursday at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore and the Multan Cricket Stadium.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Faisalabad will play in the four-day match at Lahore, while National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) will meet Sialkot at Multan. The fifth team in the tournament is Karachi Harbour, who claimed the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Championship Silver League title.

Of the 10 matches in the championship, which is being contested on a single-league basis, five each will be played at Lahore and Multan. The team ending on top of the points table will be declared the winner.

PIA, Habib Bank and United Bank have each won the tournament three times, since its inception back in 1973-74. National Bank clinched the trophy on two occasions and the now defunct Pakistan Automobile Corporation (PACO) once. A total of 12 tournaments have been contested from 1973-74 to 1995-96.

But the Pentangular didn't necessarily always have a total of five participants, as the name would suggest. In 1974-75, the then Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan (BCCP) increased the number of teams to six without changing the tournament's title.

There were eight teams in 1976-77 and the contest was still known as the Pentangular. Then, for the next three seasons, starting from 1977-78, the competition was played as the BCCP Invitation Tournament with eight teams taking part, with the number going up to 10 in 1978-79.

The tournament was back in 1980-81, this time with a sponsor, and was titled the PACO Cup Pentangular. With the exception of 1983-84, the PACO Cup was held for five seasons until the end of 1985-86. There were eight teams in the 1986-87 PACO Cup event, after which it was disbanded.

The Pentangular Trophy tournament was revived in 1990-91 after a lapse of three seasons. Another three seasons went by, before it made a reappearance in 1994-95 and was played one more time, in 1995-96.

Although initially the BCCP decided which five teams would be included in the Pentangular programme, later a qualification system was introduced. On most occasions, three of the five teams were the top outfits of the particular season's Patron's Trophy Championship and the other two the winners and runners-up of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Championship.

In the last Pentangular Trophy Championship final, played at the National Stadium from May 13 to 16 in 1996, United Bank won the competition defeating Allied Bank by a five-wicket margin. Incidentally, Allied Bank decided to disband their cricket team before the start of the season. United Bank discontinued participating in national first-class cricket after 1996-97 and stayed away from the domestic scene for nearly eight years before returning for second-grade tournaments.

The 2005-06 Pentangular Trophy Championship marks the end of the Pakistan domestic cricket season. The top five teams of the country will now be seen in action over the next 28 days at two of the major cricket grounds in Pakistan.