Benefits of following Sheffield Shield 6 regional team domestic structure are slowly coming to light

[Savak]

I have been flipping through Geo Super, PTV Sports for the last few weeks and every day the sports reporters do a detailed critique of the selections of the regional squads, selections for each game, performance of the regional coaches, the players who have missed out, the players who are playing well past their sell date, a discussion of Level 3-4 coaches in domestic cricket but who have zilch to show for themselves, even discussion of tactical mistakes made in the game by the bowling captain or batting team.

We even see press conferences by the regional players, regional captains, regional coaches at the end of each playing day where the reporters ask them tough questions about team affairs. Some sport reporters even ask them whether they are in touch with the Head Coach, Chief Selector with regards to the players who have done well.

Say what you want about the 6 team structure being unrealistic in Pakistan's economic environment, i completely agree with Wasim Khan when he summarized that the whole exercise was aimed to improve Pakistan's Cricketing quality and if they wish to be the best in the world, they have to make sacrifices, compromises and focus on quality rather than petty issues such as providing jobs to players who don't deserve to be playing anymore. Pakistan's domestic Cricket is not a welfare system.

But the emphasis on lesser teams is also providing benefits in terms of increased quality scrutiny of players, coaching staff and other officials which would never have been possible in a 16, 24, 32 team structure. We may not see immediate short term benefits now but will definitely see results of this structure within 5-10 years.

A law has to be drafted to ensure no one can change or amend this structure going forward and the government needs to pass a law directing the departments to sponsor the regions and to provide employment to quality players in exchange for tax breaks

 

[Mamoon]

6 teams are too less for Pakistan’s population. Besides, fewer teams doesn’t necessarily lead to so success. BCCI have 37 first-class teams and it hasn’t prevented them from achieving elite status and producing top quality cricketers.

You need to take care of a lot of other factors before you get all excited over how a small number of teams will lead to be better competition. Pakistan’s problems go deeper than the number of F/C teams. Our cricket culture is rotten to the core and stinks of mediocrity. Simply cutting down the number of teams will not change much in the long run.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that 4-5 years down the line Pakistan will be among the top sides in all formats just because they have 6 F/C teams now.

 

[Babbar]

If having fewer teams can improve quality, why not have just two teams - Punjab and Rest of Pakistan. Or probably just one domestic team playing six a side incl the waterboy.

This is just another change that will be undone next year.

 

[trickyone]

6 teams are too less for Pakistan’s population. Besides, fewer teams doesn’t necessarily lead to so success. BCCI have 37 first-class teams and it hasn’t prevented them from achieving elite status and producing top quality cricketers.

You need to take care of a lot of other factors before you get all excited over how a small number of teams will lead to be better competition. Pakistan’s problems go deeper than the number of F/C teams. Our cricket culture is rotten to the core and stinks of mediocrity. Simply cutting down the number of teams will not change much in the long run.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that 4-5 years down the line Pakistan will be among the top sides in all formats just because they have 6 F/C teams now.

There is Division 2 for a reason... You have another 6 teams in Division 2. The whole purpose for having 6 teams in Division 1 so you have close to 70 players ready for international cricket at any given time.

 

[Bewal Express]

The structure is good but it will only work if the structure below the 1st two tiers is also functional. The standard of cricket is decent and its good to see players being forced to work hard, something they are not used to. Its also great to see mediocrity exposed with likes of Sadaf etc, we just need better wickets to expose the mediocre batsman.

 

[Savak]

6 teams are too less for Pakistan’s population. Besides, fewer teams doesn’t necessarily lead to so success. BCCI have 37 first-class teams and it hasn’t prevented them from achieving elite status and producing top quality cricketers.

You need to take care of a lot of other factors before you get all excited over how a small number of teams will lead to be better competition. Pakistan’s problems go deeper than the number of F/C teams. Our cricket culture is rotten to the core and stinks of mediocrity. Simply cutting down the number of teams will not change much in the long run.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that 4-5 years down the line Pakistan will be among the top sides in all formats just because they have 6 F/C teams now.

Actually 6 teams is perfect, you now have to be the real best of the best to break into those teams. You want selection in Division 1, prove yourself in Division 2. Creating a competitive domestic structure reaps benefits for the national team.

India has the money to sustain 37 first class teams, the PCB doesn't.

 

[shah_1]

1) Young kid trusting the pathway system, he believes that if he works hard enough and is good enough that he will get a chance at the top

2) Parents and kids looking at cricket as financial viable option considering all the risks, I’m not talking about international cricket

3) The quality of cricket infrastructure in Pakistan

Tick these three points and number of teams don’t matter.

 

[Pakhs]

6 teams are too less for Pakistan’s population. Besides, fewer teams doesn’t necessarily lead to so success. BCCI have 37 first-class teams and it hasn’t prevented them from achieving elite status and producing top quality cricketers.

You need to take care of a lot of other factors before you get all excited over how a small number of teams will lead to be better competition. Pakistan’s problems go deeper than the number of F/C teams. Our cricket culture is rotten to the core and stinks of mediocrity. Simply cutting down the number of teams will not change much in the long run.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that 4-5 years down the line Pakistan will be among the top sides in all formats just because they have 6 F/C teams now.

I am afraid you forgot to do your maths before bringing India worshiping into this discussion. They have 37 first class teams according to you they have a population over 5 times ours. Divide 37 by 5 roughly 6/7 teams.

 

[Mobashir]

6 teams are too less for Pakistan’s population. Besides, fewer teams doesn’t necessarily lead to so success. BCCI have 37 first-class teams and it hasn’t prevented them from achieving elite status and producing top quality cricketers.

You need to take care of a lot of other factors before you get all excited over how a small number of teams will lead to be better competition. Pakistan’s problems go deeper than the number of F/C teams. Our cricket culture is rotten to the core and stinks of mediocrity. Simply cutting down the number of teams will not change much in the long run.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that 4-5 years down the line Pakistan will be among the top sides in all formats just because they have 6 F/C teams now.

Agree that 6 teams are too less for Pakistan. In normal case we should have more good players as we are around 200 million.

But the problem is that currently our cricket is so down that even 6 teams seems to much. We are lacking good cricketers. There are hardly any good player who is missing the squad of first teams.

Bringing it down to 6 teams for the moment can be a good thing. That will make our best players play against other good players. So good performances can be valued. Our bowlers used to take too many 5 wickets hauls against some unknown players and have a bowling average around 20.

If things go to plan and the 6 teams improve over the next few years we then should move on to 8 teams. That will be the perfect number for us with 8 second XI teams.

 

[SensiblePakFan]

Its a perfect system. School cricket needs improvement.
Australia, india, sri lanka , england ,south africa, all have established systems.

 

[topspin]

I am afraid you forgot to do your maths before bringing India worshiping into this discussion. They have 37 first class teams according to you they have a population over 5 times ours. Divide 37 by 5 roughly 6/7 teams.

BOOM! Sorry Mamoon but you got owned here.

 

[HGhazanfar]

PCB should reduce the regional teams to 4 - Sindh, Punjab (Southern and Central), Federal (Northern, Balaochistan, Kashmir), KPK

Increase match fees and fixed salary by 1.5 with the reduction of 2 teams. Allow 6 competent departments to enter into the mix and enforce them to also have a second XI. Effectively teams will be 10 in total 4 PCB administered and 6 department administered.

Provide an incentive to win the competitions - significant prize money for winners.

All matches should be televised.

This model would have been much better than a six team model - the financial bruden would have been shared with an incentive for departments to be involved by letting them run their teams and enter into the premier first class competitions. Would have had the right amount of opportunities representing our population approx the players in first class first and second XI would jump from 216 to 316 and players overall would be paid higher.

 

[SensiblePakFan]

I am afraid you forgot to do your maths before bringing India worshiping into this discussion. They have 37 first class teams according to you they have a population over 5 times ours. Divide 37 by 5 roughly 6/7 teams.

Spot on.

 

[Abdullah719]

6 teams are too less for Pakistan’s population. Besides, fewer teams doesn’t necessarily lead to so success. BCCI have 37 first-class teams and it hasn’t prevented them from achieving elite status and producing top quality cricketers.

You need to take care of a lot of other factors before you get all excited over how a small number of teams will lead to be better competition. Pakistan’s problems go deeper than the number of F/C teams. Our cricket culture is rotten to the core and stinks of mediocrity. Simply cutting down the number of teams will not change much in the long run.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that 4-5 years down the line Pakistan will be among the top sides in all formats just because they have 6 F/C teams now.

6 teams is perfect right now. Just have a look at the output of the players in the 2nd XI sides. There's barely a handful that can claim to be hard done by.

 

[Savak]

People are missing the point, it is easy to monitor the progress and performance of 6 teams vs 32 teams. Already in the media, selections, performances and coaching are being criticized every day, this is creating stress in the system, nepotistic, poor quality selections will not last long without being exposed in this new system.

 

[Bewal Express]

People are missing the point, it is easy to monitor the progress and performance of 6 teams vs 32 teams. Already in the media, selections, performances and coaching are being criticized every day, this is creating stress in the system, nepotistic, poor quality selections will not last long without being exposed in this new system.

Good point. It will work if the selectors and captains are willing to emotional capital into the games.

 

[Chief Destroyer]

Imo six is perfect in the long run as well. Every region is represented and you've gotta be the absolute best to represent your side. There's no reason to dilute the competition. Iron sharpens iron.

 

[Markhor]

I don't understand the whining about six teams when as [MENTION=142176]Pakhs[/MENTION] points out, the proportion of FC teams to population size in India (37 Ranji teams for 1.3bn population = 1 for every 35M) is the same in Pakistan (6 QEA teams for 210M = 1 for every 35M).

FC cricket is not about "giving everybody an opportunity" but to filter out the top talents from that system and develop them for international cricket - which our previous system utterly failed to do.

A six team competition ensures the best plays the best and the dross is filtered out. Meanwhile under the previous 16-24 team structure, a mismash of departments and regions, you had 2-3 decent teams poaching the top talents and feasting on weak opposition in low intensity, poor quality matches.

If people think we must expand the number of teams because some amazing talents are being ignored, they should look at the quality of the 2nd XI competition where 40 year old Zulfiqar Babar is running through teams.

 

[SensiblePakFan]

The media scrutiny on the performance clearly increases with 6 teams, and it pushes players to give it their all more often.

 

[Babbar]

I am afraid you forgot to do your maths before bringing India worshiping into this discussion. They have 37 first class teams according to you they have a population over 5 times ours. Divide 37 by 5 roughly 6/7 teams.

So by this population logic, NZ should just have 0.1 domestic team (probably just one A-class cricketer) as it’s less than .4% of Indian population. Sri Lanka and Australia should have just half a team each and England only one team (Yorkshire
may be).

Number of teams needed to have a good domestic circuit is not directly proportionate to population.

 

[kingusama92]

6 teams are too less for Pakistan’s population. Besides, fewer teams doesn’t necessarily lead to so success. BCCI have 37 first-class teams and it hasn’t prevented them from achieving elite status and producing top quality cricketers.

You need to take care of a lot of other factors before you get all excited over how a small number of teams will lead to be better competition. Pakistan’s problems go deeper than the number of F/C teams. Our cricket culture is rotten to the core and stinks of mediocrity. Simply cutting down the number of teams will not change much in the long run.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that 4-5 years down the line Pakistan will be among the top sides in all formats just because they have 6 F/C teams now.

Disagree.

6 (Division 1) + 6 (Division 2) is perfect.

When Pakistan had more domestic teams, a lot of useless players were getting through. It's better to cut the teams down and increase the salaries for those who deserve a spot.

 

[Mamoon]

[MENTION=142176]Pakhs[/MENTION] @topsin

I knew someone would say this and then pat themselves on the back for making a clever point when they really haven’t. India is immensely populated, but India is also a sporting nation unlike Pakistan. They have millions and millions of athletes and millions of people who are not into cricket. For example, South India is more populated than Pakistan, and football is rapidly becoming the most popular sport there.

As mentioned above, how many teams do you propose that a small country like New Zealand or even England should have, or is six the magical number that will automatically increase competition?

Pakistan has a massive talent pool. The biggest in the game after India. Yes more than half of it has not been tapped because of our system but when you only have 6 F/C sides (and their second XIs) for a population of over 200 million where cricket is the only functional sport left, it is inevitable that many, many talented players will be lost in the system.

Furthermore, some people are suggesting that when your grass-root cricket is strong, less F/C teams will increase the quality because only they quality cricketers will come through the ranks. Again, India have an immensely strong school cricket system, functional club cricket and yet they still have 37 F/C teams. So why doesn’t India reduce the number of F/C teams to let’s say 25? Won’t that increase the competition and ensure that the 3-4 passengers in every team get filtered out? No it won’t because it doesn’t work that way.

Secondly, reducing the number of teams doesn’t guarantee that poor players are filtered out. For example, the likes of Imran Farhat and other international failures have still survived. Of course some would argue that they are good in domestic cricket so they deserve to play which is understandable, but then that also means that some young kids with better potential are going to miss out and by adding a few more F/C teams (let’s 9/10 in total) they will have a better chance of representation.

Look I understand that we are doing bhangra over how we have reduced the F/C teams how this is going to increase competition. However, the fact is that Pakistan will remain a mediocre team 10 years from now because we have bigger problems than the number of F/C teams and we are not capable of identifying them let alone resolving them. We are fools to think that Australian cricket is successful because they only have 6 teams in Shield Cricket.

 

[Danyaalr01]

6 1st XI teams is perfect, even now we have some mediocre players playing. Players in 2nd XI will work hard to get into 1st XI. The only thing that needs fixing os school cricket, this will bring in competitiveness and new talents will be easier to find. Also it forms rivalries between schools which engages the people of the school drawing more attention to cricket.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

They just now to include a seniors tier as well which includes players above the age of 32, this will ensure that they are continued to be employed plus this will reduce the avg age of main tier. Also the main tier shall only have 2 players above 30 in playing XI and must have 5 U25 players in the playing Xi also.

 

[Pakhs]

[MENTION=142176]Pakhs[/MENTION] @topsin

I knew someone would say this and then pat themselves on the back for making a clever point when they really haven’t. India is immensely populated, but India is also a sporting nation unlike Pakistan. They have millions and millions of athletes and millions of people who are not into cricket. For example, South India is more populated than Pakistan, and football is rapidly becoming the most popular sport there.

As mentioned above, how many teams do you propose that a small country like New Zealand or even England should have, or is six the magical number that will automatically increase competition?

Pakistan has a massive talent pool. The biggest in the game after India. Yes more than half of it has not been tapped because of our system but when you only have 6 F/C sides (and their second XIs) for a population of over 200 million where cricket is the only functional sport left, it is inevitable that many, many talented players will be lost in the system.

Furthermore, some people are suggesting that when your grass-root cricket is strong, less F/C teams will increase the quality because only they quality cricketers will come through the ranks. Again, India have an immensely strong school cricket system, functional club cricket and yet they still have 37 F/C teams. So why doesn’t India reduce the number of F/C teams to let’s say 25? Won’t that increase the competition and ensure that the 3-4 passengers in every team get filtered out? No it won’t because it doesn’t work that way.

Secondly, reducing the number of teams doesn’t guarantee that poor players are filtered out. For example, the likes of Imran Farhat and other international failures have still survived. Of course some would argue that they are good in domestic cricket so they deserve to play which is understandable, but then that also means that some young kids with better potential are going to miss out and by adding a few more F/C teams (let’s 9/10 in total) they will have a better chance of representation.

Look I understand that we are doing bhangra over how we have reduced the F/C teams how this is going to increase competition. However, the fact is that Pakistan will remain a mediocre team 10 years from now because we have bigger problems than the number of F/C teams and we are not capable of identifying them let alone resolving them. We are fools to think that Australian cricket is successful because they only have 6 teams in Shield Cricket.

Unfortunately this post does not make sense either.

 

[Pakhs]

So by this population logic, NZ should just have 0.1 domestic team (probably just one A-class cricketer) as it’s less than .4% of Indian population. Sri Lanka and Australia should have just half a team each and England only one team (Yorkshire
may be).

Number of teams needed to have a good domestic circuit is not directly proportionate to population.

NZ is not comparable because they are such a small nation they have to operate at a different model to Pakistan - and please if you talk about logic do not tale about a fully developed country who is able to take advantage of every human being in the country to highly under developed country.

Pakistan cant compare itself to England or NZ yet. India maybe as they are also under developed country - If India was a developed country they would be No.1 in cricket NBA style.

 

[Usman Chadda]

People are missing the point, it is easy to monitor the progress and performance of 6 teams vs 32 teams. Already in the media, selections, performances and coaching are being criticized every day, this is creating stress in the system, nepotistic, poor quality selections will not last long without being exposed in this new system.

Furthermore, it allows the PCB to now focus on grass root level and establish a set of protocols effectively. With the issues emanating from a cluttered FC cricket previously, this was obviously difficult.

The main issue is the system BELOW 2nd XI cricket. For all the hue and cry over merit-based selections, there is no superstar any selectors are keeping out right now from the Pakistan national team. They are all pretty much the same level, and in most cases, over-rated by the gullible fans or agenda-based media.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

Agreed something need to be done at the grass root level and school cricket , professional coaches and good selectors required alongside merit.

 

[Mobashir]

[MENTION=142176]Pakhs[/MENTION] @topsin

I knew someone would say this and then pat themselves on the back for making a clever point when they really haven’t. India is immensely populated, but India is also a sporting nation unlike Pakistan. They have millions and millions of athletes and millions of people who are not into cricket. For example, South India is more populated than Pakistan, and football is rapidly becoming the most popular sport there.

As mentioned above, how many teams do you propose that a small country like New Zealand or even England should have, or is six the magical number that will automatically increase competition?

Pakistan has a massive talent pool. The biggest in the game after India. Yes more than half of it has not been tapped because of our system but when you only have 6 F/C sides (and their second XIs) for a population of over 200 million where cricket is the only functional sport left, it is inevitable that many, many talented players will be lost in the system.

Furthermore, some people are suggesting that when your grass-root cricket is strong, less F/C teams will increase the quality because only they quality cricketers will come through the ranks. Again, India have an immensely strong school cricket system, functional club cricket and yet they still have 37 F/C teams. So why doesn’t India reduce the number of F/C teams to let’s say 25? Won’t that increase the competition and ensure that the 3-4 passengers in every team get filtered out? No it won’t because it doesn’t work that way.

Secondly, reducing the number of teams doesn’t guarantee that poor players are filtered out. For example, the likes of Imran Farhat and other international failures have still survived. Of course some would argue that they are good in domestic cricket so they deserve to play which is understandable, but then that also means that some young kids with better potential are going to miss out and by adding a few more F/C teams (let’s 9/10 in total) they will have a better chance of representation.

Look I understand that we are doing bhangra over how we have reduced the F/C teams how this is going to increase competition. However, the fact is that Pakistan will remain a mediocre team 10 years from now because we have bigger problems than the number of F/C teams and we are not capable of identifying them let alone resolving them. We are fools to think that Australian cricket is successful because they only have 6 teams in Shield Cricket.

India is recently developing it's sport but India was never a big sporting nation.
Be it India or Pakistan it's shameful to see how bad they are in sports.
You just have to look at their Olympics games record and other world championship records.

 

[aloo paratha]

Beyond me how some people think reducing teams is a bad idea...

Which 'once in a generation' talents are being left out of 1st XI's? Even the 1st XI's have some terrible players in them like Sohail Tanvir and Sadaf Hussain.