ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2016

At home, the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy was yet again completely reorganized. The 26-team Gold and Silver Leagues (in effect, first and second divisions) that had operated in 2014/15 were scrapped, and replaced by a 16-team competition, with eight regional and eight departmental sides grouped initially into two pools of eight. Twelve of the 16 sides taking part in 2015/16 (six regional, six departmental) secured their places on the strength of their performances in 2014/15, while the other four places were awarded to the leading performers in separate regional and departmental qualifying competitions, held just before the start of the domestic season. Three of the four teams that qualified by this means - Khan Research Laboratories and Sui Southern Gas Corporation from the departmental competition, and Lahore Blues from the regional one - are familiar names to followers of Pakistan’s domestic cricket. But the fourth was a new name to the ranks of first-class cricket: Federally Administered Tribal Areas, generally (and mercifully) shortened to FATA. Geographically, FATA is a semi-autonomous region of north west Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan, containing no established cricket centres. But they qualified entirely by right, having beaten all three of their better-known rivals in the qualifying competition (Abbottabad, Faisalabad and Karachi Blues) by substantial margins. As ever, it was the departmental teams that performed best in the Quaid-e-Azam pool matches, providing as they did three of the top four finishers in Pool A, and four of the top five in Pool B. It was not a particularly happy start to first-class life for FATA, who finished bottom of their pool, but at least they had the satisfaction of securing their first victory in a match against Rawalpindi early in December – despite the fact that in this game their first five batsmen to be dismissed did not score a single run between them. After the pool matches, the top four teams from each pool went forward to a ‘Super Eight’ phase. Unusually, this did not take the form of each team carrying forward its points from matches already played against other Super Eight qualifiers, and then playing all of those that it had not met at the pool stage. Instead the Super Eight teams were placed into two groups of four, and then met all the other three teams in their group once - including the team that they had already played at the pool stage. The winners of these two groups, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (Quaid-e-Azam winners for the past three seasons) and United Bank, then met in a final to decide the overall title. The earlier pool match between the two had been a rain-spoiled draw, but in the final Sui Northern required only four of the scheduled five days to retain their title, winning a low-scoring match by six wickets thanks to an eight-wicket haul in United Bank’s second innings by former Test player Bilawal Bhatti, and innings of 85 and 60* by their captain: none other than Misbah-ul-Haq. What a year he had! As has been the case for several years, no visiting teams came to Pakistan to play first-class cricket in 2015/16 or 2016, so the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy continued to provide the country’s only cricket at that level. The changed structure of the domestic competition meant that the total number of first-class matches fell from 116 in 2014/15 to only 69 in 2015/16, and individual aggregates over the season fell accordingly. Heading the runscorers was Asif Zakir of Sui Southern Gas Corporation with 791 runs at 56.50; two others (Umar Amin, also of Sui Southern, and Akbar-ur-Rehman of National Bank) also exceeded 750 runs. Only one bowler reached 50 wickets - right-arm medium pacer Mohammad Abbas of KRL, who took 61 wickets at the very respectable average of 16.78. As in previous seasons, notes are given beneath the scorecards in an attempt to minimize confusion between the many namesakes in Pakistan cricket. There were four each of Mohammad Irfan and Mohammed Waqas in 2015/16, but 2014/15’s record of five players with the same name remains (thankfully) unequalled. Recently, Philip Bailey at CricketArchive has reappraised the careers of the several current and recent Pakistani cricketers named Mohammad Waqas. The resulting revisions may be seen in this year’s list of ‘Errata and Corrigenda’ at the end of the Annual. (KSW) 258 Pakistan in 2015/16