PCB meets to give facelift to club cricket

[On_the_up]

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Karachi: The Pakistan cricket Board hierarchy is meeting in Lahore on Thursday to chalk out plans to give the domestic cricket tournaments a facelift and make them more attractive and entertaining for the people.

The move to lay emphasis on domestic cricket comes just nine days after the Sri Lankan cricket team and match officials were ambushed in Lahore going to the Gaddafi stadium for the second Test.

The incident has left a big question mark on the future of international cricket on Pakistan soil.

An official of the Board told PTI that representatives of all regional associations had been called for the meeting to be chaired by Chairman Ejaz Butt.

"The idea is to discuss ideas on how to give added importance to domestic cricket and make it more attractive and entertaining to draw crowds to the stadium," the official said.

The board is planning to hold its domestic twenty20 championship before the ICC T20 World Cup in England in June to give cricket a boost in the country.

"There is no doubt that after the Lahore incident we need to bring people to the domestic matches and show the world it is safe to play in Pakistan," the official said.

PTI

[Amir]

Well they need to get people in stadium first to show the standard of play has improved. This is what I would do:

1) Market teh game. Give free tickets, not just give them. But go out of their way, go to schools...go to busineses and physically hadn them the tickets. Then market it on TV and casue a bit of comootion and buzz about it.

2) Cut down the teams. Have like 5-6 state teams. So people feel some sort of tie to them while at the same time only the best players play. Then m ake a division two, with the same teams but for the next rung of players. Make it like a reserve league and players can move from the two leagues while they are registered with that state team.

3) Improve the pitches so the standard of play is better.

Then again this is PCB, so they will probaly do this:
1) Not market it, just look for a TV deal and hope peopel see it on PTV.
2) Get more teams or scrap regional cricket cause departmetn cricekt "benefits" so much more.
3) Pitches will not change.

[natalia]

Also provide the matches on free local TV channels, not channels like Geo Super which people have to pay loads and loads to subscribe for and watch. Doing that will also increase the amount of people who watch the game.

And obviously, for people like me (who live outside Pakistan) will be able to watch it online. :P

[Ali888]

Wise heads such as Rashid Latif and Imran Khan and people with deep experience of the game should be asked how to improve domestic, use the model of Australia and South Africa and extract what is best from each system i.e. 5/6 major state teams who play each other so the best bowlers get tested against the best not get easy wickets against rubbish teams on unfit pitches or batsmen get easy runs against unfit bowlers on flat pitches.

Unfortunately as Amir above points out they will ask all their friends who have their snouts in the trough what will best serve their own interests rather than spare a thought about long term development of the game in the country.

[Couch Cricketer]

Also provide the matches on free local TV channels, not channels like Geo Super which people have to pay loads and loads to subscribe for and watch. Doing that will also increase the amount of people who watch the game.

And obviously, for people like me (who live outside Pakistan) will be able to watch it online. :P

You are mistaken if you think people have to pay a lot of money to watch Geo Super
When I was there we used to pay about S$4/month to local area cable for about 70-80 channels. All the major cities and most of the smaller cities have cable
Even legal cable tv Like world call show geo super you dont have to pay extra for it or something

The only reason no one streams it in Pakistan is that most of us are cheapskates and the rest dont have an internet connection with good enougf speed