Pakistan regional teams can start using overseas players

KARACHI, June 16 (Reuters) Pakistan, keen to improve the standards of domestic and international cricket after their poor showing at the World Cup, are allowing their regional teams to recruit overseas players for the first time.

After a meeting held today to review the domestic game, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced that regional teams would be permitted to sign one overseas player each.

''The idea behind this incentive is two-fold,'' said Zakir Khan, the PCB's director of cricket operations.

''(We want) to raise interest in domestic cricket...and to lift the competition level so the standard of talent available for the national team also improves in the near future,'' he told Reuters.

There has been much criticism of the standards of domestic cricket in Pakistan after the national team were eliminated in the first round of this year's World Cup in the Caribbean.

Reuters GT RN2327