The Pakistan Cricket Board has confirmed a new 50-over event, the National Champions Cup, as the opening act of the 2026-27 domestic season. The week-long List A competition begins in Multan on August 11 and will involve four teams chosen by the national selection committee. Its stated purpose is to assess Pakistan’s best one-day players as the side builds towards the 2027 World Cup.
Two 50-over tournaments back to back
The President’s Cup, the departmental 50-over competition, is due to start three days after the National Champions Cup finishes. With two List A events on the calendar, players will get more one-day cricket than they have in the last two seasons, when only a single domestic 50-over tournament was staged following the end of the Pakistan Cup.
Osama Sharoon, the PCB’s Senior General Manager of Domestic Cricket Operations, said the schedule had been built around the men’s team’s World Cup preparations and that starting the season with two List A events was a deliberate choice. He added that a number of established and emerging players would appear across the competitions, which he expected to benefit both supporters and the cricketers themselves.
More regional teams and a split first-class competition
The regional structure grows from 18 to 20 teams, with Sialkot and Peshawar each now fielding two sides. They join Lahore and Karachi as the only associations with more than one team in domestic cricket, and both will also enter two teams in age-group events.
The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Pakistan’s premier first-class event, starts on November 1 with 16 regional teams divided into Gold and Silver divisions. The top eight sides make up the Gold Division, while the remainder, including the additional Sialkot and Peshawar teams, play in the Silver Division.
It is the third season in a row that the board has reshaped the tournament. All 18 regional teams took part in 2024-25, and a trimmed 10-team format was used in 2025-26. The PCB says the latest system is designed to strengthen the domestic pathway, raise the level of competition and deepen the pool of players available for future international assignments.
