How the Quaid e Azam Premier Cricket League was founded

It is important that the factual history of the league is shared with the wider cricket community to ensure we and the future cricketers understand why the Quaid e Azam Premier Cricket league was founded.

Of the 30 member clubs, 23 member clubs of the Quaid e Azam Sunday Cricket League decided to resign from the league as it lost confidence of the administrative body, which put their interest before that of the league. During the mediation process the QEASCL administrative body rejected the most feasible solution of a compromised committee on both occasions, causing the league to split.

1^st stage of Mediation

The Chair of NACC, Gulfraz Riaz presented the following 6 options on the 6^th December 2019 during the first meditation process unfortunately no agreement was reached. The conversation between Gulfraz and Basharat Hussain clearly evidences that his associated committee was in favour of both option 4 and 5 which were the two most feasible options to keep the league intact.

1. Initial one to one meeting between Taj and Basharat in the hope that they commence constructive dialogue and find some opening in resolving this matter amicably.
   
2. NACC to invite all key decision makers from the 30 teams that formed the Quaid e Azam Sunday Cricket League. No representatives of any group associated with messrs Taj and Basharat would be present. The sole aim here was allowing the teams a platform in making a decision on the future of their league.
   
3. Presentation from both groups to an independent panel (as mentioned above) in putting a case forward regarding the matter of correct constitutional procedures were indeed followed or not.
   
4. Create an independent interim committee for the 2020 season thus keeping the teams together, chaired by me.
   
5. Asked messrs Taj and Basharat to nominate members from their group that could come together to make a new committee and show some form of unity with like-minded people, again aiming to keep the league intact.
   
6. I understood that many of the grievances stemmed from the perception by some that the disciplinary committee was just not transparent or fair in many cases that fell into their jurisdiction and to give some confidence moving forward I agreed to chair this committee for the 2020 season to ensure complete and clear neutrality.

2^nd Stage of Meditation

During the second stage of the meditation the following three options were presented which had been discussed at a meeting of all the 30 clubs (Option 2 of the 1st mediation process), where both representative bodies were present.  The two representative bodies concluded that they would discuss and agree to one of the three options highlighted at the meeting which was supported by most of the clubs at the meeting as we had finally reached a compromised solution.

1. Elections to be held where messrs Taj Butt, Basharat Hussain and Naheem Malik were not contesting.
   
2. An interim committee to run the affairs of the league for a period of 10 months only, committee members to be brought together by Gulfraz Riaz consisting of cricketing people that were not associated with Bradford and who had no conflict of interest.
   
3. Gulfraz Riaz to chair the league with two members nominated from both groups for a period of time to be agreed.

Gulfraz Riaz arranged a meeting of the two representative bodies where the Quaid e Azam Sunday Cricket League committee denied that they had agreed to discuss the three options and confirmed that the meeting with the 30 clubs was hijacked.  After a long evening of discussions  the representative of the Quaid e Azam Sunday Cricket League agreed they would ask their committee members to consider option 3 and then to put that to their remaining clubs at an EGM.

On the 8^th of January 2020 a post added on QEA facebook account by the League Secretary Naheem Malik confirmed that option three was not supported by its 7 remaining clubs and the Quaid e Azam Sunday Cricket split was sealed.

Those that have associated themselves with this once a great league were disappointed with the outcome particularly as majority of the 7 remaining clubs were also associated with the committee members. The decision of the 23 member clubs to resign confirmed they were right to do so as the committee members were specifically serving their own interest and position first and not the interest of what was the best Asian Cricket league in the country. This was indeed a sad day in the history of the Quaid e Azam Sunday Cricket League as few individuals shattered the 40 years history of a world renowned organisation that set the bar for others to follow.

The post also acknowledge the creation of the new league, The Quaid e Azam Premier Cricket League was founded on the 8^th January 2020 by 26 member clubs from Bradford, Leeds & Dewsbury of which 7 clubs were members of the Premier Section, 9 were members of Section A and 7 members of the Section B of the Quaid e Azam Sunday Cricket League and the league also had three newly formed clubs not associated with any other league.