Quaid Trophy opens with new benefits for players

KARACHI—The golden jubilee edition of Quaid-e-Azam Trophy National Cricket Championship which begins at various parts of the country from Saturday with lucrative benefits for players.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is putting rupees over 80 million for staging this premier first class competition of the country with new monetary benefits for regional team players. Apart from daily allowance and monthly salary, each member of laying eleven will get Rs.10,000 as a match fee for every match.
This year’s competition is played on different format a record 22teams including nine departmental teams and 13 regional outfits will be in action in two and half month championship. Last year nine departmental teams contested for supremacy in Patrons Trophy and 13 regional teams including two teams each from Karachi and Lahore will figure in Quaid Trophy altogether in event.
Habib Bank Ltd (HBL) won the Patrons Trophy and Karachi Urban won the Quaid Trophy in 2006-2007 season so they are defending their crown. However,like in the past, country’s premier competition will be without top national players as they are currently busy with the series against South Africa and early next month they will fly to India for away series.
Participating teams are placed in two groups with HBL, Pakistan Customs, Lahore Ravi, WAPDA, Sialkot, NBP, Faisalabad, Multan, Karachi Whites, Hyderabad and Sui Southern Gas Company are in pool “A”. Pool “B” consist of KRL, Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd, PIA, Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Ltd, Karachi Blues, Rawalpindi, Lahore Shalimar, Peshawar, Islamabad, Abbotabad and Quetta. Sui Southern Gas and Sui Northern Gas are making their maiden appearance in the Quaid Trophy. Following is schedule of matches starting from Saturday. Pool “A”: HBL v Customs NBP Stadium Karachi (Umpires Shakeel Khan-K.Mahmood. Referee: Ilyas Khan). Lahore Ravi v WAPDA LCCA Ground Lahore (Kaukab Butt-M.Arif. Referee: A.Sami Khan). Sialkot v NBP at Jinnah Stadium Sialkot (Nadeem Ghouri-Atiq Khan. Referee Khalid Niazi). Faisalabad v Multan Sports Stadium Sargodha (Rasheed Bhatti-Raweed Khan. Referee: Arshad Pervaiz). Pool “B”: KRL v ZTBL KRL Stadium Rawalpindi (Iftikhar Malik-Ijaz Ahmed. Referee: Aziz-ur-Rehman) PIA v SNGPL Pindi Stadium Rawalpindi (Javed Ashraf-Ahmed Shahab. Referee: Saadat Ali) Lahore Shalimar v Peshawar Arbab Niaz Stadium Peshawar (Saleem Badar- Islam Khan. Referee: Ishtique Ahmed). Islamabad v Abbotabad Diamond Ground Islamabad (Afzaal Ahmed-Hakeem Shah. Referee: M.Anees).—Agencies