Media Release - 19 September 2005

Sponsorship of Regions
PCB would like private and public institutions to sponsor any one of the eleven regions that are to contest the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy/Cup and 20/20 Championship during forthcoming season. PCB has already advertised the sponsorship proposals in August 2004. Now with growing interest in domestic season, the series with England and India and the popularity of 20/20, several institutions have shown an interest in sponsoring regions during the above stated championship.

PCB therefore, requests all interested institutions to bid for the regions according to the following reserve price scale:

a) Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi      Rs. 5 million per year
b) Multan, Faisalabad, Peshawar     Rs. 4 million per year
c) Sialkot, Hyderabad, Quetta,
   Islamabad, Abbotabad             Rs. 3.5 million per year

Development
Chairman PCB recently visited Mirpur and Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir where significant development of stadiums has been made. Mirpur, for instance has recently completed a well-appointed stadium with a capacity of 16,000. It has already been given a first class match in the coming season which will appropriately mark an entry for Azad Kashmir as a seperate regional team with Islamabad or Northern Areas. A separate stadium in Muzaffarabad is expected to be completed in 2006 where a 5-star hotel is also being constructed. If an airlink can be established with Muzaffarabad. it would become an International arena where tests and ODIs can be played.

Chairman also visited Peshawar, Kohat and the Tribal agencies. Chairman PCB hosted a dinner in honor of Peshawar (Quaid-e-Azam Trophy winners) and also gave a cheque of Rs. 1 lakh to the Govt. High School Nanakpura which recently won the All-Pakistan School Championship.

Kohat has now a well-appointed stadium where first class matches can be scheduled with minor up-gradation. The seven tribal agencies are also being provided at least one ground per agency through coordination between govt. and PCB.

Chairman PCB will be touring interior Sindh on a 3-day visit from 20th september to see at first hand, cricketing facilities available to the people.

Grass Roots Progress
Over the past year, significant progress to revive grass roots cricket has been achieved. To sum up:

a) An all Pakistan school championship sponsored by Pepsi has been held with 460 schools participating, Next year, it is hoped that between 1500-2000 schools will participate in the championship.

b) A national Women's championship in which 8 regions participated was held in March. The Championship was won by Karachi. The UNESCO sponsored championship match was held on 15th September where over 10,000 school girls witnessed the match. An India Under-19 team in arriving on 24th September and, Pakistan is hoping to host the first women's Asia Cup in December 2005.

c) Plans to hold a national Club Championship during coming the season are in hand and will be launched shortly.

d) A fast-bowlers talent hunt scheme has been launched in cooperation with Pepsi which will hopefully lead to promising fast bowlers coming to the fore. Talent hunt schemes for spinners and other disciplines will follows.

Abbas Zaidi
Director Board Operations

(Article: Copyright © 2005 Pakistan Cricket Board)