Former Pakistan wicket-keeper, Rashid Latif, has opposed the idea of abolishing departmental cricket in the country saying, one of the reasons for a lack of continuity in Pakistan’s domestic cricket is the appointment of PCB chairman.
“Some reasons include changing in the board, there is a one-man show in the board. A Chairman comes and he thinks in a certain way and gets things implemented. After some time, government changes, and in PCB’s constitution, PM is the patron in chief.”
In an exclusive interview with Cricwick, the former captain said that the structure of domestic cricket in Pakistan witnessed many changes in the past and some of the tournaments were very successful.
“This is the reason that our domestic cricket changed. We’ve played first-class with 27 teams, we’ve done it with six sides too. Ayub Trophy was played, and we even saw the Benazir Shaheed tournament as well. Patron’s trophy, we even saw Quaid-e-Azam trophy being played through different ways”.
When Rashid was asked whether increasing the number of teams will work well for Pakistan cricket, he said that the quality of cricket might be compromised with more teams but it will bring more players into the competition and will reduce the chances of nepotism.
“It depends a lot on the number of matches in first-class cricket. If the quality isn’t there, but still the number of matches and quantity of players depends. Because few players and teams only work in places where the merit is very high. We have 70% merit and 30% of players are injected into fewer teams. But if the majority is playing first-class, then you can have a lot of players who come in front. The standard is low but the chances of things being unfair towards players are very less,” he concluded.
