Lahore April 6: The first edition of the A.H. Kardar Cup Inter-School Tournament has commenced with matches taking place across Lahore and Karachi on the opening day.
The City School and The Fahim School won the two matches played on the opening day of the Karachi round. Over in Lahore, Qila Lachman, GPSS Wahadat Road, GHS Gulberg and GMHS Model Town won their respective matches.
Some 9000 school going kids are going to take part in the tournament which will be staged in 21 cities around the country.
The tournament was launched at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) Lahore last week, Chairman PCB Shaharyar Khan, Chairman PCB Executive Committee Najam Sethi, Director Game Development Aized Syed, Director Media Amjad Hussain Bhatti, Shahid Kardar s/o A.H. Kardar Vice-Chancellor Beacon House University.
The tournament trophies have been donated by Mr. Shahid Kardar while he also announced a prize of Rs 100,000 for the Best Player of the Tournament. By April 21, all 21 cities would be engaged with simultaneous matches all across the country.
Through this initiative PCB is honouring the outstanding services of Late Abdul Hafeez Kardar who was Pakistan’s first Test captain. The legendary Mr. Kardar had a great vision for development of the game across the country and the Inter-School program has been devised to recognize his efforts in promoting cricket in Pakistan.
Tournament Features:
-A total of 21 cities are involved in this record breaking event that is set to engage some of the leading schools across the country besides ones where sport activities are scarcely held.
-Up to 20 schools will be participating with their school names in each region/city (10 public schools and 10 private schools). Also schools having more strength of students will have the option of not merging with other schools.
-Total indirect participation of schools across Pakistan: Minimum Participation = 675 Schools approx. Maximum Participation = 900 Schools approx Total direct participation of schools across Pakistan: Maximum Participation = 348 Schools approx Total direct participation of school players across Pakistan: Maximum Participation = 9,000 School players approx.
• Regional/City U-16 School cricket Championship: Regional/City U-16 School cricket Championship in each region will be held from 5th of April to 25th of May. Result: One regional/City U-16 school cricket champion from each region/city.
• Pool matches (Regional champions) Pool matches will be played between the champion regional/City school teams. This tournament will be played in July (after the month of Ramazan). Result: Top team from each pool will qualify to play semi-finals.
• Semi-final and Final (Pool champion) Semi-final and Final will be played in July. (In summer vacations, after Ramadan) Result: One “National U-16 school cricket champion”
-Participating players. A player has to be a student of the given school and the age of the player has to be 16 years and 4 months in August each year to participate in this tournament. Age verification process which is finalized by PCB has set January 1 2001 as the cutoff dates for eligibility of the participating players.
