LAHORE: Having avoided any association with former captain and pace bowling icon Wasim Akram since his retirement from international cricket, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has decided to engage him indirectly via a sponsor in a country-wide talent hunt campaign for fast bowlers.

In a news release on Wednesday, the PCB announced that it is starting a talent hunt for pacemen with a leading business house.

“The PCB, together with LG, announces the start of the Super Speed Star Campaign, a nationwide search for the best young bowlers in the country. The campaign is set to officially get underway on July 23 with a series of trials taking place in five different cities. Bowlers selected during the trials will travel to Karachi and join leading fast bowlers for a 12-day camp with Pakistani great Wasim Akram,” the PCB said.

According to the schedule the trials will be held in Peshawar on July 23, in Mirpur on July 27, in Multan on July 29, in Sukkur on July 30 and in Quetta on July 30 and 31.

The camp carries a prize money of Rs 300,000 to be divided among the top bowlers of the camp, the PCB stated.

During this year’s ICC World Cup, Wasim complained that the PCB management had not contacted him for help despite the team struggling during the event Down Under whilst he was also there in Australia and New Zealand.

Dawn carried a report after Wasim’s complaints in which some PCB officials said the Board had advised the team management to keep itself away from Wasim.

Wasim, who has become a leading TV expert since his retirement, was unable to get any big assignment from the PCB as he was also penalised by the one-man Judicial Commission of Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum who probed the match-fixing scandals in Pakistan cricket in the year 2000.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2015

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