The domestic season will begin on August 11 in Multan with the National Champions Cup, a week-long four-team one-day tournament, which has been specifically added into this year’s calendar to gauge the depth of one-day talent in the country. The teams for this tournament will be picked by the national selection committee.
The National Champions Cup is the first of two one-day competitions of the season. The second tournament – the President’s Cup, which is competed by department teams – will begin three days after the former’s conclusion.
The PCB has organised just one one-day competition in the last two seasons after it abolished the Pakistan Cup – the one-day tournament for regions – after the 2023-24 season. Previously, both departments and regions played a one-day tournament each.
“This year the focus has been pinned on Pakistan men’s team’s preparations for the Cricket World Cup and for that the Domestic Cricket Operations Department has strategically arranged two List-A tournaments to start the season. With a number of top-quality national and emerging stars appearing this year in the various domestic tournaments, the fans will surely enjoy the coming season and our cricketers will develop by leaps and bounds,” Osama Sharoon, PCB’s senior general manager for domestic cricket operations, said in a media release.
The region-based competitions – the first-class QeA Trophy and the National T20 Cup – will now be played by 20 teams as Sialkot and Peshawar have been allowed to field two teams each. Sialkot and Peshawar join Lahore and Karachi as the only four regions – out of 16 – to field two teams. They will also field two teams each in the age-group tournaments.
All 16 regions will feature in the QeA Trophy, which has been divided into two divisions: Gold and Silver. Both the divisions will begin simultaneously from November 1. The Gold division will be played by top eight teams, while the other 12 teams, including two new sides from Sialkot and Peshawar, will compete in the Silver division. This is the third change in the structure of the QeA Trophy in as many seasons. The tournament was played by 10 teams in the last season. Before that, in the 2024-25 season, it was played by all 18 teams from 16 regions.
Beginning in the 2023-24 season, the bottom teams played in the Hanif Mohammad Trophy, a non first-class three-day tournament. That tournament, too, now stands abolished.
The QeA Trophy will be preceded by the President’s Trophy first-class (played by eight teams) and non first-class competitions which will also run concurrently at various venues across Pakistan from September 12.
The domestic season will conclude with the National T20 Cup, played in February and March. Its Silver division, featuring 12 teams, will precede the Gold, which will run from February 23 until March 6.
