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Are Pakistan's players better off in the new Quaid-e-Azam?

Habib Bank Limited, the 2018 Quaid-e-Azam One-Day Cup winners ESPNcricinfo Ltd
  • Osman Samiuddin
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    Osman Samiuddin
    Senior editor, ESPNcricinfo
      Osman spent the first half of his life pretending he discovered reverse swing with a tennis ball half-covered with electrical tape. The second half of his life was spent trying, and failing, to find spiritual fulfillment in the world of Pakistani advertising and marketing. The third half of his life will be devoted to convincing people that he did discover reverse swing. And occasionally writing about cricket. And learning mathematics.
  • Umar Farooq
Sep 12, 2019, 05:37 AM

One of the oldest questions in Pakistan cricket has a new answer. Not whether Lahore has contributed more to Pakistan cricket than Karachi (the new answer is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). Or who was the better captain, Imran or Javed (ditto, Misbah). Or even which one of the two Ws was better (Asif… kidding).

No, this season, for the first time, to the question of whether departments or regions should dominate domestic cricket, the answer is regions. For the first time, Pakistan's domestic cricket will be played without a single departmental team; the first time, in other words, that Imran Khan's long-held belief that Pakistan should have fewer, region-based teams playing has been implemented. Given he is the Prime Minister and openly demanded this model, it isn't a surprise.

Hitherto, every single first-class season had at least one department side playing - whether that is Pakistan Railways or the Public Works Department in the earliest years, or banks, the odd airline, agricultural firm or TV channel thereafter. Some years, regions and departments played together, some years they had separate tournaments. But every year, both were there.

The PCB has, of course, trumpeted the changes, and while there are aspects to laud, there is significant impact on the most important stakeholder in this: the player himself.

Are cricketers worse off?

What has alarmed cricketers most, naturally, is the new pay structure.

In this model, all first-class cricketers will be paid a monthly salary/retainer of PKR 50,000 (approximately USD 319). Additionally, they will receive match fees of PKR 75,000 (USD 478) for Quaid-e-Azam (QeA) Trophy games, PKR 40,000 (USD 255) for Pakistan Cup (50-over) games and PKR 30,000 (USD 191) for National T20 games. They will also be paid a daily rate while playing of PKR 2500 (confirmed, as of now, for the QeA). So, over the course of a year, if a player plays all ten QeA trophy group matches (which go four days), five Pakistan Cup games and five T20 games (assuming both are single league formats), he will earn approximately PKR 1.8 million (USD 11,500). Potentially, with various forms of prize money, that could go up to PKR 2 million (USD 12,742). That, however, is only if he is an all-format pick and plays as many games as that. And there are credible reports that the PCB have paid that amount, possibly more, for just the design of the new QeA logos.

That has led to a number of players who were with departments, informally and privately complaining of the hit in their earnings. Departments were simple. They employed players and paid monthly salaries. These varied per department and depended on seniority, going from as low as PKR 32,000 per month at PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) to PKR 200,000 - 250,000 (USD 1274 - USD 1595) at a couple of departments. UBL (United Bank), which disbanded its team two seasons ago, paid as high as PKR 400,000 (USD 2548). At SNGPL, Pakistan's most successful modern team, some established internationals were on PKR 750,000 (USD 4778). At HBL (Habib Bank) minimum salaries were PKR 100,000.

That leaves Pakistan's top players worse off. As many as 17 of this year's 19 centrally contracted players were with department sides. They have not only potentially lost out on those salaries but will also not be paid the provincial monthly retainers because they have national contracts.

Indeed, as many as 81 of the total 114 players who are part of the provincial squads, played for a department side last year. Very few would have been on less than the PKR 50,000 monthly retainer they will receive now, but almost all of them would have been used to a range of additional perks and benefits. Most departments had healthcare coverage that employees - and their families - could avail. PIA gave employees benefits with their air travel. Power and gas companies waived off their bills. Most departments didn't pay match fees but most had good travel allowances and built-in bonuses and incentives for wins.

A cut on the wealthiest earners, you could argue, is not the worst thing in unequal ecosystems, especially if that wealth is being redistributed to those in need. That is not the case here. Department salaries had nothing to do with the PCB - if anything, they picked up the slack in ensuring players earned enough to become professionals. That money is out of the system and it doesn't seem like it is going to be replaced anytime soon.

A cut would also ignore a global context where Pakistan's top earners are already historically among the lowest earners.

Who is better off? Potentially those cricketers who played only for regions last year and are now in one of the six squads. Last year, they would have been paid only match fees, whereas this season they will be paid monthly retainers and their match fees have been increased. But even a number of those would play for a regional side in the QeA trophy and be contracted to a department team - and paid a salary - in the Grade Two (non-first class) division.

Quality, but what of quantity?

The other way cricketers have been hit, of course, is that there are going to be less of them playing first-class cricket. Just six provincial sides with 19-man squads means that if no players are added, there will be 114 first-class cricketers in Pakistan this season. By comparison, last season there were 16 teams and as many as 353 players who played a first-class game.

The trade-off between quality and quantity has been at the forefront of domestic cricket discussions in recent years. In 2013-14, for instance, there were 25 teams playing first-class cricket, albeit across two tournaments. And, as players for one didn't play in the other, that's near enough 500 first-class cricketers.

That, clearly, was a bloated system and needed rationalising. And, to be fair to the PCB, two of the scene's biggest departments - UBL and HBL - have shut down their teams in the last two years. There's no guarantee others would not eventually have gone that way - in fact, over the years, a number of departments, such as Allied Bank (ABL) and PNSC (Pakistan National Shipping) have also pulled out.

But are six teams too few for an essentially single-sport country of over 200 million people? Australia, a country of just 25 million people and multiple sports vying for attention, has six teams. England and Wales, with a population of just under 60 million, has 18 counties. New Zealand has less than five million people but six first-class sides.

The good…

There's plenty to look forward to this season. Because of a thin international season, the QeA will showcase the cream of Pakistan's talent against each other, playing for identifiable teams in a schedule that isn't designed to break cricketers physically. There are three-day gaps between games and sides play ten games in 92 days, a far cry from recent seasons where teams played as many as seven four-day games in just 41 days.

Bringing in a no-toss rule, as well as Kookaburra balls, should help alleviate two of the biggest concerns of recent seasons, of conditions geared to ruin batting and reward mediocre medium-pace bowling on under-prepared wickets. Average first-innings scores in the QeA have been the lowest anywhere in the world though, so until direct action is taken to improve the nature of pitches, that statistic won't change readily.

… but

The success of this will depend on the buy-in from its players, and right now, there isn't much. This season, those players are significantly fewer in number and a lot of them will make less money than before. In fact, by not guaranteeing extra money to underpin this model, by not finding commercial partners - by not ensuring that players are better off - before the restructure, the PCB seems to be working against the very sustainability of that system. In this light, it isn't surprising that most departments seem to think this system might undergo change again next season - as the PCB hasn't stipulated as such that departments should release players, one has opted to extend player contracts by another year on the thinking that departments will be back next season.

If not, the PCB may find itself hearing more stories like that of a department player who has been selected for one of the provinces but is driving a Careem cab in the off-season to offset the loss in earnings.

For Virat Kohli, it will be about 'high-voltage cricket' but no 'unnecessary tension'

  • Sidharth Monga
Dec 16, 2020, 07:51 AM

From Shikhar Dhawan mocking an injured Shane Watson in 2013 to David Warner being used as the official provocateur during the 2014-15 tour; from standing up to "mental disintegration" in 2004 to puerile fights on the field even in the aftermath of Phillip Hughes' death.

There was a time when the rivalry between India and Australia appeared to have come within one chirp of actual physical blows on the field. India's tour to Australia in 2018-19 had all the makings of being the ugliest ever, but before that happened, we had the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal, and something changed.

That series featured mostly amusing banter but nothing remotely as nasty as we had become accustomed to seeing when India played Australia. Later last year, during the World Cup, India's captain Virat Kohli asked the Indian fans to stop booing Steven Smith, who had done his time and paid his dues to come back on the field for the first time after his ban expired.

Thus, before the start of the 2020-21 Test series, we have reached a stage where some have been left wondering if this new-found respect between these teams will actually compromise the intensity and integrity of the Tests.

On the eve of the first Test in Adelaide, which starts on Thursday, Kohli was asked what the reasons for the better relations were, and his answer summed up the evolution of the rivalry: these teams play a lot of IPL together and thus they know each other better. All the characters of this narrative are also older, wiser and surer about their place in the world.

Since the Cape Town incident, Australia have acknowledged they were wanting when it came to their behaviour and so have strived to find the right balance between competitiveness and model behaviour. That said, this has been a year where people have reviewed their priorities in life and realised how unwanted certain things had been.

"It is a combination of all those factors," Kohli said. "I think this year also has made people realise that a lot of things might not have been necessary in the past where you hold grudges and you have unnecessary tension between teams and individuals, which is absolutely pointless. You are still going to be professional and make sure you are positive and aggressive in your body language and the way you go about things on the field.

"But I don't think that things are going to be as personal as they used to be before also because of the fact that we understand that we are contributing to a larger cause. And it is the quality of cricket that has to stand out. Obviously, you are going to try to get people out, you are going to try to score runs, but at the end of the day the unnecessary stuff is going to get filtered out pretty much by itself."

Australia's assertions of trying to be better behaved have not always been taken on face value, but Kohli did acknowledge they had changed "to an extent". "It could be a culmination of playing IPL together, a lot of IPL cricket, Australia changing their approach to an extent, and also just the way the things have panned out this year," he said. "Everyone is just grateful for the opportunity to be back on the field. It is not like the games haven't been as intense or as competitive, it is just the unnecessary stuff that has been filtered out. I feel there is much more respect between sides. You can see that on the field, and I hope the cricket continues to be competitive.

"We should not compromise on the quality of the cricket. Banter is going to go on here and there all the time. That is the highest level of cricket we play, and it is going to be very competitive. There is going to be tension, there is going to be stress, there are going to be emotions flaring every now and then. I don't foresee anything getting personal anymore. I think we are also - all of us - getting smarter, and [are] a few more years into our careers. So we are going to make better and smarter choices, and make sure the quality of cricket remains."

The dichotomy in all this is that Kohli is well regarded in Australia because he gives back as good as he gets; in the words of Greg Chappell, that makes him the most Australian non-Australian. Kohli was asked if the players felt vilified doing what they are at certain times, which is to give it their all within the rules to win the match for their sides.

"The media has absolute full right and space to see things and perceive things as and how they want," Kohli said. "For us, as cricketers, we understand that we do what is required for the team in that moment. To make sure that we are moving forward as a side - whether it is standing up to some chirp on the field or just being aggressive in our plans or our body language as a side.

"At the highest level, the quality of cricket cannot be compromised. If you are stepping onto the field thinking we will have smiles and handshakes throughout the day - and you know, we are not going to be as competitive or as aggressive in our body language - then I think it is the wrong idea to have. You have to maintain the dignity of the sport, but you also have to understand that you are competing at the highest level with two quality sides going at each other.

"And there are going to be moments when things are going to get difficult and teams are going to stand up against each other but not in a disrespectful way is what I meant. There is definitely a lot more to Test cricket. Appreciation for someone's performance or someone's grit and character comes at the end of five days is what I believe.

"And through the five days, obviously the crowds are going to try to make things as difficult as possible for us. We are going to try to make things as difficult as possible for the opposition, and that's the beauty of Test cricket. You can appreciate the efforts put in by both teams at the end of five days and make sure you don't carry anything off the field is what I meant.

"But on the field, things are going to be competitive, it is going to be high-voltage cricket because there are quality players in both sides hungry and eager to perform for their teams and make sure they help their team win. It is definitely going to be as competitive as it has always been over so many years between India and Australia."

In other words, hard but fair. How much more Australian can Kohli get?