Domestic cricket: Tired players to play another tournament

Coaches complain as PCB announces Faysal Bank One-Day series.

KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) chaotic and hectic domestic scheduling continues with the announcement of the 14-team Faysal Bank One-Day Tournament that will be played from March 5-23 in different cities of the country.

The players have been continuously playing domestic cricket since October 2012 when they took part in the inaugural President’s Trophy.

The event had to be stopped midway in order to accommodate the domestic Twenty20 (T20) event, which was held to assess players before their selection in the one-day and T20 teams of Pakistan for the tour of India.

Although the event resumed after the T20 tournament, its final had to be delayed since the national players who were a part of final teams – HBL and SNGPL – were unavailable because of national duty.

In the midst of President’s Trophy, the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy also started and went on until only yesterday.

The long, gruelling months of competitive cricket have taken a toll on those who have taken part in both the first-class tournaments; they are carrying minor injuries which have become a concern for their teams.



The coaches of the teams stated their reservations against the one-day tournament being played just after the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy as they believed that their squads hardly got any time to recover from fatigue.

“PCB’s domestic cricket officials should realise that the players will get unfit if they continue playing cricket like this,” one of the coaches told The Express Tribune.

“We were hoping to give some much needed rest to our players. The human body can take stress until only a certain limit; then it breaks down, resulting in injuries which could be a major problem for all teams.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2013.