da betcris： The 44th edition of Quaid-i-Azam Trophy cricket championshipbegins Wednesday with 18 teams vying for top honours in thepremier first-class national competition
Khalid H. Khan02-Jan-2002The 44th edition of Quaid-i-Azam Trophy cricket championshipbegins Wednesday with 18 teams vying for top honours in thepremier first-class national competition.For the first time, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) hastaken a giant step by fielding provincial teams which givesdefinite exposure to players from remote areas across thecountry against the 14 district associations, including lastseason’s Grade-II champions Sialkot.Three Rest XIs from Punjab, Sindh and NWFP and a BalochistanXI will compete against the likes of Karachi Whites, KarachiBlues, Lahore Whites, Lahore Blues, Peshawar, Rawalpindi inthe round robin league phase of the competition whichconcludes on Feb 22.The winners of the two groups will contest the five-dayfinal from March 1. Whichever side wins the coveted trophyalso stands to claim the cash prize worth Rs 1,00,000 whilethe runners-up will be richer by Rs 50,000.Lahore Blues, who won last year’s final by a solitary wicketover Karachi Whites at National Stadium with Wasim Akram andAbdur Razzaq playing crucial roles, start the defence oftheir title against their senior string Lahore Whites at theLCCA Ground.In another important move, the PCB has decided to ensurethat only one team from either Karachi or Lahore (which is aforegone conclusion) make the final by grouping both cities’teams in one pool. Both Karachi’s outfits, Whites and Blues,have been placed in Group I while Lahore Whites and Bluesare in Group II.In all 17 venues will be used for the 72 league matches. Twoof the venues, Country Club Ground (Muridke) and GymkhanaClub (Okara), will be staging first-class fixtures for thefirst time. Meanwhile, the Karachi City Cricket Associationnamed their squads for the opening match.Teams are:Moin Khan (captain) Shahid Afridi, Ghulam Ali, Saeed binNasir, Hasan Raza, Faisal Iqbal, Imran Javed, Tabish Nawab,Mohammad Hasnain, Tanvir Ahmed, Iftikhar Ali, Aqeel Sharif,Atif Maqbool, Imranullah, Ahmed Shafi, Mohammad Farooq andAhmed Zeeshan Malik.Mohammad Javed has been nominated to lead Karachi Blues inplace of current Test stumper Rashid Latif, who leaves forBangladesh with the national squad Wednesday.The other members of the Karachi Blues squad are Agha Sabir,Asim Kamal, Atiq-uz-Zaman, Naumanullah, Zeeshan Pervez,Farhan Adil, Ali Mohammad Madni, Rizwan Saeed, RajeshRamesh, Haaris Ayaz, Fahim Ahmed Senior, Tariq Haroon, AdnanKaleem, Mir Rashid and Ashraf Ali.Hyderabad, which was embroiled in a dispute over selectionmatters, managed to announce their squad at the last minuteonly after the PCB intervened to resolve the differencesbetween the HDCA officials.First round schedule (Jan 2-5):Group I:*Karachi Whites v Karachi Blues at KCCA Stadium, Karachi(Umpires: Sadiq Mohammad and Afzaal Ahmed. Match referee:Naeem Ahmed).*Bahawalpur v Hyderabad at Bahawalpur Stadium (Umpires:Salim Badar and Islam Khan. Match referee: Ilyas Khan)*Sargodha v Faisalabad at Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad(Umpires:Iftikhar Malik and Asad Rauf. Match referee:Ehteshamuddin).*Rest of Sindh XI v Rest of Balochistan XI at NationalStadium,Karachi (Umpires: Shakeel Khan and Masroor Ali.Match referee:Mohinder Kumar).Group II:*Lahore Whites v Lahore Blues at LCCA Ground, Lahore(Umpires: Mian Aslam and Nadeem Ghauri. Match referee:AzharHasan).*Sheikhupura v Sialkot at Country Club, MuridkeUmpires:Feroz Butt and Siddique Khan. Match referee:AliZia).*Rawalpindi v Islamabad at KRL Stadium, Rawalpindi (Umpires:Iftikhar Malik and Rasheed Bhatti. March referee: KhateebRizwan).*Rest of Punjab XI v Rest of NWFP XI at ArbabNiazStadium,Peshawar (Umpires: Z.I Pasha and Iqbal Butt. Match referee:Ishtiaq Ahmed).