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How many players in the Pakistani team regularly play first class 4 day cricket?

Savak

Test Captain
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Feb 16, 2006
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You would atleast expect our national team players to turn up for their regional teams when the 4 day competition is in progress. I understand that the T-20 WC was in progress this year which is why our main players didn't play the Quaid-e-Azam trophy matches.

But the PCB going forward needs to stop issuing NOC's to any players who get offers to play in leagues when your premier 4 day tournament is in progress.

PCB also needs to clarify with all the players they have at their disposal as to whether they are interested in playing test cricket or not. If not then it needs to be made clear to them that they will not get a high central contract with the PCB. Right now it is unclear whether the following players are even interested in playing test cricket for Pakistan

1) Mohammad Hasnain
2) Mohammad Wasim Jr
3) Shadab Khan

If they are then they need to be ordered to play in the 4 day tournament to be in the reckoning for the national side.

Also the PCB should seriously consider a specialist T-20 side and even consider playing second-third string players on the back of PSL and Domestic T-20 performances for their T-20 sides. Sides like England, Australia play their domestic lot in the bilateral T-20 series and rest their main players. I would rather our test players use this time to play first class 4 day cricket rather than play T-20 cricket for Pakistan or sit on the bench when they can be playing for their domestic sides in the 4 day competition.

Prioritizing T-20 cricket over test cricket is now badly reflecting in our test team.
 
Hasnain has played 7 fc is 5 years.

While our fc season was in full swing the likes of hasnain, waseem and dahani were busy playing a useless 7 match t 20 seriws with England.
 
I'm all for maximising your earnings but some of our players seem intent of playing every pyjama and chaddi league there is. They'll join Somalia's T20 league if they could.

If you look at the ratios of FC:T20 matches of some players, it's excessively lopsided.

Shadab - 17 FC and 220 T20s.
Hasnain - 7 FC and 92 T20s.
Rauf - 9 FC and 141 T20s.

However the other problem is often the FC season coincides with our international fixtures. That's where management need to plan better and rest these guys to expose them to red ball cricket instead of playing every meaningless bilateral !
 
I'm all for maximising your earnings but some of our players seem intent of playing every pyjama and chaddi league there is. They'll join Somalia's T20 league if they could.

If you look at the ratios of FC:T20 matches of some players, it's excessively lopsided.

Shadab - 17 FC and 220 T20s.
Hasnain - 7 FC and 92 T20s.
Rauf - 9 FC and 141 T20s.

However the other problem is often the FC season coincides with our international fixtures. That's where management need to plan better and rest these guys to expose them to red ball cricket instead of playing every meaningless bilateral !

Other options

1) Bring back departmental 4 day cricket to increase the number of 4 day games and 4 day game opportunities for players

2) More A team tours

3) Players only being permitted to play high quality T-20 leagues i.e. Natwest, Big Bash but no permission to be given to T-10 leagues. If players are being released for the South African, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi league, then get it in writing from these boards that they will release their players for the PSL in return.
 
Unless you make First Class appearances mandatory by adding a clause to the central contract, most players will opt out because of more lucrative opportunities elsewhere.

The system itself is broken. There is a reason why BCCI doesn’t allow its players to play franchise cricket apart from their own IPL. Most of their players regularly play Ranji Trophy.

PCB needs to do something similar but it is obvious that Test cricket is not the priority.
 
Unless you make First Class appearances mandatory by adding a clause to the central contract, most players will opt out because of more lucrative opportunities elsewhere.

The system itself is broken. There is a reason why BCCI doesn’t allow its players to play franchise cricket apart from their own IPL. Most of their players regularly play Ranji Trophy.

PCB needs to do something similar but it is obvious that Test cricket is not the priority.

BCCI has the money to impose exclusivity. The money BCCI pays and IPL pays in unparalleled. No Indian domestic or international player will risk losing out on $3-5 million per annum for a foreign league where the maximum money is $350,000-$500,000. There is now some talk in the BCCI about atleast allowing Indian players to play county cricket to hone their red ball skills or to help batters improve their games against the moving ball as sometimes playing in certain foreign leagues, domestic structures are more beneficial from a cricket point of view than money alone.

Unfortunately the PCB cannot afford to pay this amount of money to the players to buy exclusivity. Therefore the players and the PCB have to make a choice on what is important.

The PCB has to tread carefully on allowing and disallowing players to play in the Lankan Premier League, BPL and the South African league because we need these boards to allow their players to come to the PSL as well. The PCB should negotiate with these boards that we will release our players to play in your leagues if you will reciprocate and allow your players to play in the PSL. The PCB will not disallow players to play county cricket, natwest league, hundred, Big Bash as these leagues are high quality leagues.
 
Other options

1) Bring back departmental 4 day cricket to increase the number of 4 day games and 4 day game opportunities for players

2) More A team tours

3) Players only being permitted to play high quality T-20 leagues i.e. Natwest, Big Bash but no permission to be given to T-10 leagues. If players are being released for the South African, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi league, then get it in writing from these boards that they will release their players for the PSL in return.

Departmental cricket seems unlikely. Despite the change in Govt, the departments haven't come rushing back. Some of them were struggling pre-Covid and UBL closed its cricket division even before IK's changes. That system had its day and wasn't delivering towards the end.

I completely agree on A tours. They're lossmakers but a necessary investment in our youth. India are very good at this.
 
stop selecting 18 man home squads, go back to selecting 12 man squads so unselected international players can play first class cricket.

the worst case scenario is young players being selected in extended squads and then not playing either international or domestic.

selecting 18 man squads for home series is totally pointless.
 
Hasnain is wasting himself by not playing FC.
The likes of Hasnain, Haris, and to an extent Wasim are not FC bowlers (Wasim could potentially play a role in Asian conditions) anyways. Someone like Dahani should have been playing a lot more FC cricket instead of traveling around with the T20 side and acting like a clown.
 
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