Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) held a meeting, presided by chairman Mohsin Naqvi, at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore, to find ways to revamp its domestic structure to facilitate identification and development of talented cricketers in the country.
Pakistan have not been at their best since their run to the finals of the 2022 T20 World Cup. They failed to progress beyond the first round of the ODI World Cup last year and the ongoing T20 World Cup. After the latest debacle in the USA and the Caribbean, the Men in Green and captain Babar Azam have drawn flak from fans as well as former cricketers.
In a bid to stop the downfall of the Babar Azam & Co, Naqvi held a three-hour-long meeting, which was attended by COO PCB, Salman Naseer, CFO PCB, Javed Murtaza, and directors of International Cricket, High Performance Centers, Domestic Cricket, PSL, Commercial, and other relevant PCB officials.
According to a statement released by PCB, Naqvi emphasised the promotion of quality domestic cricket at all levels. He also announced that various tournaments would be held consistently at the club level as well as the national level. The Chairman also mentioned that talented players must be groomed professionally by excellent coaches, who will help them in honing their skills. The players will be evaluated primarily on the basis of performance, fitness, and merit.
The participants agreed on the importance of improving the standard of coaching in the impending domestic season. “A master coach will be appointed to train domestic cricket coaches,” PCB wrote in its statement. Also, the domestic contracts are set to be reviewed.
It was also discussed that players will have to take part in domestic competitions in order to be in the radar for selection to the national team. Furthermore, the selection criteria for the national team will be strictly based on performance and fitness exhibited by the cricketers in the domestic tournaments. During the meeting, the participants also reviewed the domestic cricket structures of other cricketing nations who are consistently performing well.
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It was unanimously decided that merit, performance, and fitness will not be compromised at all. The meeting decided to hold tournaments for all three formats of the game to promote quality domestic cricket in the forthcoming season. The chairman also highlighted the need for urgent efforts to discover new talent at the grassroot level. He reiterated that investment in new talent will promote cricket at the grassroot level and help in achieving good results.
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