KARACHI: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and Sindh government have joined hands to refurbish and rehabilitate 17 cricket grounds across Sindh.

According to the details, a meeting regarding promotion of cricket in Sindh was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Sindh Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah at Sindh Secretariat last week. The meeting was attended by Chairman Sindh Cricket Association Imran Husain, PCB Director High Performance Nadeem Khan, GM Domestic Cricket PCB Junaid Zia, Secretary Sports Department Akhtar Bhurgari, Secretary College Education Khalid Haider Shah and all the divisional commissioners.

In the meeting, the PCB officials announced that the PCB is going to organize the Sindh School Cricket League in the province from February next year with the cooperation of the Sindh government. In the first phase, 239 matches would be played in 30 districts of the province.

PCB officials added that 240 school level teams and 3850 players will be part of the Sindh School Cricket League. In the second phase, 24 matches will be played between 30 teams at divisional level. In the third phase, five matches will be played between six teams in the Sindh Championship.

In the meeting, PCB officials added that the kind of talent that has emerged in cricket from Sindh is remarkable and PCB will now go to the district level in search of talent hunt.

In the meeting, Chief Secretary Sindh Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah said that the Sindh government would provide full support to the PCB. He further added that the Sindh School Cricket league would cost PKR 27 million which would be provided by the Sindh government.

During the meeting it was decided that cricket grounds across the Sindh province would be refurbished and rehabilitated by the Sindh government in collaboration with the PCB. The Sindh Government will provide PKR 91 million and PCB will spend PKR 57 million annually in the maintenance of 17 grounds. Various cricket grounds in Karachi, Hyderabad, Badin, Jamshoro, Larkana, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Shaheed Benazirabad, Shikarpur and Sukkur will be restored.

This article first appeared in Business Recorder on December 29, 2021