LAHORE (Kashmir English): The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Pakistan’s premier domestic first-class tournament, will begin on October 6 with an expanded lineup of 10 regional teams, according to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
This marks the first time the event will feature 10 teams instead of eight, following a series of late changes to the qualification criteria.
Initially, the Cricket Board had planned for the top six teams from the previous Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and the two top teams from the ongoing Hanif Mohammad Trophy to be part of the tournament.
However, upon the conclusion of the Hanif Mohammad Trophy, the PCB first revised its plan to include the top two teams from each of that tournament’s two groups, which would have brought the total to four qualifiers.
Hanif Mohammad Trophy
The following day, the PCB changed the criteria again, deciding instead to determine the four qualifiers based on the combined points of all eight teams from the Hanif Mohammad Trophy, regardless of their group.
This decision resulted in Multan, which finished third in its group, finding a place at the expense of Lahore Blues, which had finished second in the other group.
The four teams that qualified via the Hanif Mohammad Trophy are Karachi Blues, Multan, FATA, and Faisalabad.
They will join Islamabad, Lahore Whites, Abbottabad, Bahawalpur, Peshawar and defending champions Sialkot in the competition. The tournament will be played across four cities as Abbottabad, Islamabad, Peshawar and Rawalpindi.
According to the Board, the 10-team tournament will be played on a single-league round-robin format, with a total of nine rounds scheduled from October 6 to November 26.
The five-day final, venue of which will be announced later, between the top two teams is set for November 29 to December 3.
The first round will feature a high-profile rematch of last year’s final, with defending champions Sialkot facing Peshawar at the Imran Khan Stadium in Peshawar.
Sialkot had won the previous final by one wicket in a closely fought match. The squads for all 10 teams are to be announced at a later date.
