Only one season after Pakistan's domestic cricket structure was revamped, Umar Gul, the former international pacer, has called for bringing back the departments into their domestic cricket.
PAKISTAN NEWS
Gul bats for reversal of Pakistan's domestic structure
Gul feels the new model isn't enough for the players to sustain financially. © Getty
Departments were an integral part of Pakistan's domestic cricket since the early 1970s, brought in as a means to provide employment to the players. However, under Wasim Khan, the Pakistan Cricket Board went back to the provincial format last year in order to improve the quality of cricket at the domestic level.
As per the revamped structure, each of the six provinces - Sindh (Karachi, Hyderabad and Larkan), Southern Punjab (Multan and Bahwalpur), Central Punjab (Lahore, Sialkot and Faisalabad), Balochistan (Dera Murad Jamali and Quetta), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Peshawar, FATA and Abbottabad) and Northern areas (Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Azad-Jammu Kashmir) - fielded a first team and a second team, comprising of 16 players each. However, as a result of that, more than 400 cricketers went out of the first-class structure.
Even as the PCB contracted these 192 cricketers in the new set-up, with the first team getting paid PKR 6 lac per annum (which was increased further this year), apart from a significant rise in the match fees, Gul feels the new model isn't enough for the players to sustain financially.
"The salary I used to receive from the department was sufficient to cover my monthly expenses. But now, honestly speaking, what we are earning from domestic matches, which includes match fees and a monthly retainer, is not enough to cover the needs of my family," Gul told