Departments play key role in domestic cricket, says Yasir

ISLAMABAD: Former Test and county cricketer Yasir Arafat sees departments as integral part of first class system in Pakistan, saying that the regional system in England is the outcome of decades of sporting culture in that society.

Yasir, who now permanently resides in England, is busy these days coaching and training youth in Kent. The all rounder of the highest quality picked seven wickets and scored 44 runs on his debut against India in Bangalore in 2007.

Yasir also represented KRL, National Bank and Rawalpindi for over two decades in first class cricket besides playing for six different counties in England during his playing era. He also has the honours of playing for all major T20 leagues around the world.

“I have heard about Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) plans to minimize departments’ role in domestic cricket. There are chances that departments may not be allowed to play first class cricket from here on. Instead the plan is to associate top departments with regions.”

Yasir, who is here for a week, said the entire cricketing infrastructure these departments have raised over the years would collapse.

“What would be the use of infrastructure and separate cricket departments these have raise over the years if these would be having no role in future cricket?

“Look if National Bank for instance have their own cricket grounds and have raised cricket department of their own what would be their fate then? Almost 70 percent departments playing top first class cricket have their own infrastructure raised following year of efforts.”

Besides that he said young players’ future would be left in disarray. “Besides Rawalpindi, owe my progress as a young to professional cricketer to KRL where I played for almost 16 years. It is difficult for a young player to make strides into international cricket without the active support of departments in Pakistan. This is the culture we have got and this is the way we develop our cricketers.”

Yasir said over the years sports culture has developed in England.

“The society in UK is totally different to ours. There they have developed a century of system where every cricket fans loves to get club membership. Getting club or county or region membership here is almost impossible.

“Look even the premier tournament National Twenty20 Cup failed to attract crowd in Multan last week. Top cities were involved in that tournament. T20 is considered as more crowd catching events at domestic level. You can’t even imagine having empty stadiums during T20 blast in England.

“Unless and until our community gets financially sound, we can’t expect membership system that is hallmark of English cricket.”

Yasir said that interest in national sports hockey has died down over the years mainly because departments and banks have stopped hiring professional players.