image sourcePCB
- author, Sami Chaudhry
- position, Cricket analyst
On a fine afternoon in March 2022, as Chairman PCB Rameez Raja settled into his comfortable chair at the PCB headquarters in Lahore, the Pakistan Junior League was ‘arrived’ and he did not blink an eye in organizing it. Did not care.
Rameez Raja’s ‘unique’ idea was to change the fate of Pakistan cricket and the tireless effort spent on marketing it proved to be so financially rewarding that the Pakistan Junior League earned Rs 95 million in its very first edition.
The only problem was that 929 million rupees were spent by the Pakistan Cricket Board to organize the festival of Rameez Raja’s dreams.
image sourcePCB
What is the matter in the chair of the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board that every person who sits on it starts dreaming of conquering the universe in the very first moment and self-presentation is part of his official duties, as if PCB The constitution binds him.
Rameez Raja’s dreams have loosened the full pockets of PCB, but the recent incumbents of this chair have already said that ‘the money is a lot, it was not available before, it will be available now and it will be shown.’
On the other hand, the mismanagement and uncertainty reached such a level that the PCB had to scramble to sell the two-year broadcast deal. And as per the hard-earned deal, PCB will earn around $6.5 million for the broadcast rights from August 2024 to December 2026.
The only problem is that almost half of this earnings, $2.7 million, will be spent on the three-year salary of the five mentors who will groom the five teams in the Champions One Day Cup starting today. It should also be noted that the head coaches and other coaches of the respective five teams will be apart from these mentors.
It is better to leave the debate on the merits of this Champions Cup and the good news that it promises to Pakistan cricket, but it is still important to understand that a first How will cricket be benefited by introducing three new tournaments in the domestic calendar?
In other words, how will this Champions Cup reap all the benefits that previous tournaments and previous PCB chairman have not? Although investment in domestic cricket is a good thing and the participation of Pakistani international cricketers in this tournament will give some exposure to the youth, but how will it improve Pakistan’s international cricket?
Because, at present, the status of Pakistan’s international cricketers has become such that in a Big Three Champions Cup, by keeping these superstars of ours in the emerging category, Mitchell Starc, Jasprit Bumrah, Pat Cummins, Kagiso Rabada, Virat Kohli, Joe Root. , need to be given an opportunity to learn from the likes of Ben Stokes and Kane Williamson.
image sourcePCB
This fact may be bitter for many data-hungry experts, but thanks to the statistics that some of Pakistan’s recent superstars have emerged and even gained the fame of first ranking in ODIs, the quality of competition of these opposing teams and squads is almost as good as this new one. It was the same as the Champions Cup.
If the PCB really wanted to use this tournament to bridge the deep gap between domestic and international, then instead of mentoring its critics for huge salaries, it could spend that huge purse on bringing in some other tough international players. It should have increased international exposure like PSL.
But what to do, every new chairman has to do something new. So, Mohsin Naqvi is also burning his name in PCB’s illustrious history and three weeks before the toughest Test series of Pakistan’s home season, this historic ODI tournament of his vision is dawning.
Just like when mobile companies launch new models, they present the essence of their year’s work in the form of bigger cameras, more memory and new power buttons, in a similar way PCB has used expensive mentors, live Words like streaming and artificial intelligence are frequently used.
Yes, from the point of view of marketing, all these ‘keywords’ can be converted into hashtags and sold, but the question is that PSL is also sold well in the market, but T20 World Cup cannot give access to the trophy.
