ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2014

In the President’s Trophy, United Bank led the league table with seven wins. But they were chased hard by the 2012/13 champions, Sui Northern Gas, who finished in second place with six victories and only one defeat (compared with two for United Bank). In the final, inspired by innings of 192 and 77 by Naeemuddin, Sui Northern Gas asserted their superiority to retain the Trophy. Whereas the President’s Trophy consisted of a simple league with a final, the structure of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy was more complex. The fourteen regional sides were divided into two groups, each of which played a round-robin league. The top four from each group progressed to a ‘Super Eight’ stage, in which the teams were placed in two further groups of four each; while the remaining teams went into the ‘Bottom Six’, again in two pools. After all this, the winners of the two ‘Super Eight’ groups, who turned out to be Islamabad and Rawalpindi, met in the final. This match, virtually a local derby, was comfortably won by Rawalpindi to claim its first-ever Quaid-e-Azam title. In 2012/13 the two leaders of the ‘Bottom Six’ pools had played a lesser final of their own, but this was discontinued in 2013/14. The complete separation of the President’s Trophy and the Quaid-e-Azam, and the absence of anything in the nature of a representative match in which players might have mingled, meant that, in effect, there were two first-class seasons running in parallel in Pakistan in 2013/14. Consequently, the leading players were unable to appear in so many matches as in 2012/13 and no one came close to a thousand runs: the most was by Israrullah of Peshawar, with 875 at 67.30. In second place was the leading run-getter in the President’s Trophy, United Bank’s Abid Ali with 850 at 44.73. Among the bowlers, however, there were five instances of fifty wickets or more: Nasir Malik (left arm fast-medium) of Rawalpindi, with 65 wickets at 20.49, comfortably headed the list, while in the President’s Trophy it was United Bank’s off-spinner Asif Maqbool that led the way with 57 at a very impressive average of 17.17. In July 2014, the Board announced yet another of the frequent reorganisations of Pakistan domestic cricket. In 2014/15 the President’s Trophy will be retired; instead the departmental and regional sides will both compete in a revamped and extended Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. It will consist of two divisions known as ‘Gold’ and ‘Silver’. The ‘Gold’ division will include the top six departmental sides from the 2013/14 President’s Trophy, plus the top six regional teams from the Quaid-e-Azam. These twelve teams will play a round-robin league and the top two will contest a final. The ‘Silver’ division will consist of fourteen teams, who will play in two groups: the top four from each group will take part in a knockout stage, also culminating in a final. (JCB) President’s Trophy 2013/14: Final table P W WI WTF WLF L DWF DLF ND Pts NetRR 9 10 6 6 0 3 0 1 1 United Bank 10 5 0 0 2 2 1 0 0 60 0.307 2 Sui Northern Gas Pipelines 10 5 1 0 0 1 1 2 0 58 -0.038 3 National Bank of Pakistan 10 4 1 0 0 0 2 3 0 53 0.661 4 WAPDA 10 3 1 0 0 3 1 2 0 40 -0.065 5 Zarai Taraqiati Bank 10 3 0 0 0 4 1 1 1 31 0.020 6 Port Qasim Authority 10 1 1 0 0 5 3 0 0 28 0.079 7 Pakistan International Airlines 10 3 0 0 0 4 0 3 0 27 -0.344 8 Habib Bank 10 0 2 0 0 3 2 2 1 27 -0.104 9 Khan Research Laboratories 10 1 0 0 0 3 6 0 0 27 0.264 10 State Bank of Pakistan 10 1 0 1 0 5 0 3 0 16 -0.227 11 Pakistan Television 10 1 0 0 1 7 0 1 0 15 -0.482 FINAL: Sui Northern Gas Pipelines beat United Bank Limited by 278 runs. 280 Pakistan in 2013/14