When the domestic cricket structures of other countries are looked upon and scrutinized it will be found that they have in place very strong systems that ensure that the very best make it to the national side.
The Australian domestic cricket structure boasts a very healthy first class inter-state cricket competition in the form of the Sheffield Shield. Six regions play against each other where the pool of the best players from each region
is concentrated into one team. It is from this very system that players like Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Michael Bevan, Greg Chappel, Allan border, Mark Waugh, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Dean-c53369 Jones, Darren Lehman and others have made it into the Australan national side.
India too boasts a very strong domestic system, which includes a number of tournaments and competitions. These include the BCCI Corporate Trophy, the Irani Trophy, the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy, Ranji Trophy which was founded
as ‘The Cricket Championship of India’, the Duleep Trophy which was started to help selectors assess the form of the cricketers, Vijay Hazare Trophy based on the lines of the Ford Ranger Cup of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, the Deodhar Trophy, Inter-state T20 Championship, Syed
Mushtaq Ali Trophy which is a zonal T20 tournament and finally the Indian Premier League. With such a vast variety of domestic tournaments it comes as no surprise that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 is currently sitting atop the table of the ICC rankings as the best Test team.
Players like Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar and many others have been a product of the domestic cricket structure of India where the selectors did not rely on mere chance. To further hit home this point, Inzamam ul Haq, Wasim
Akram and many other players were selected just because they were spotted by selectors in a training camp.
Here is where the dichotomy lies. Pakistan cannot seriously expect to be consistent in the international circuit if it does not have a pool of players ready to fall back on. Very few people have during their tenure with the PCB
made a genuine effort to strengthen first class cricket in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 with the exception of General Tauqir Zia who initiated a number of very good programmes such as Vision 2005 where the sporting infrastructure was developed and the regional cricket associations
were given greater autonomy.
In 2003, Tauqir Zia chalked out a plan, which consisted of a completely new region based domestic structure. This was partly designed on the recommendations of the former cricketer Imran Khan. The reason that Mr Tauqir Zia took
such an active effort to revamp the domestic structure was due to the fact that his own son http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Junaid-Zia-c69672 played first class cricket, therefore the General was more than aware of the problems that budding cricketers consistently face. Tauqir Zia’s Vision 2005
stands out as the sole effort by the PCB to attempt to bring first class cricket on par with the international level. For the first time in the history of the game, the cricketers were promised monthly wages of 350 to 400 dollars which meant 20 to 25000 rupees
back then.
The spot fixing imbroglio earlier in the Summers resulted in the provisional suspension of three key players and in such a scenario other cricketing nations would have found it rather easy to fill the void however Pakistan has
been completely clueless. They have failed to find the perfect combination of players and have relied on senior players who have not been playing cricket for a long time to fill the void. On the contrary when we take a look at England, it becomes more than
clear that their county cricket structure is so strong that with players like Flintoff and Ryan Sidebottom retiring they cannot be bothered for there was no space for them in the team.
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