Daily Times

LAHORE: The three-day National Under-19 Championship and one-day National Under-19 Cup will commence on Sunday across six venues in which country’s around best 200 cricketers born on or after September 1, 2002 will get an opportunity to display their talent and move up the domestic cricket ladder. The six Cricket Associations will field two sides of 16 players each who will play in the three-day game, which, after a day’s gap, will be followed by a 50-over fixture. As such, the teenagers will experience two formats over a five-day period, which will help them to learn to adjust, adopt and tweak their game as per the required format.

The 12 squads comprise players who either impressed the selectors with their performances in the recently-held City Cricket Association 50-over tournaments or through open and merit-based trials. Also part of the squads are the 32 players who attended an eight-week High Performance Camp at Karachi’s Hanif Mohammad High Performance Centre under the supervision of head coach Ijaz Ahmed. The three-day National U19 Championship and one-day National Cup will also provide the PCB scouts, coaches and selectors with an opportunity to unearth the hidden talent and bring them into the national framework, thus, increasing the pool of players at the domestic level, including for next year’s ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2022 West Indies. With the PCB offering lucrative domestic contracts, there is further incentive for the teenager cricketers to demonstrate the talent and potential they have and try to vie for these contracts, which is a pathway to higher rewards and recognition.

Six Whites squads have been placed in Pool A and will play their matches in Gujranwala, Muridke and Sialkot, while the remaining six Blues squads are in Pool B with their matches scheduled at Rawalpindi’s Shoaib Akhtar Cricket Academy and Islamabad’s National Ground and Shalimar Cricket Ground.

First round fixtures (10-12 Oct three-day match, 14 Oct 50-over match):

Pool A:

1: Balochistan (W) VS Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (W) at Jinnah Stadium in Sialkot

2: Central Punjab (W) VS Sindh (W) at Jinnah Stadium in Gujranwala

3: Northern (W) vs Southern Punjab (W) at Country Club in Muridke.

Pool B:

1: Balochistan (B) vs Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (B) at Shoaib Akhtar Cricket Stadium in Rawalpindi

2: Central Punjab (B) vs Sindh (B) at National Ground in Islamabad

3: Northern (B) vs Southern Punjab (B) at Shalimar Cricket Ground in Islamabad.