respectively, in the 33-match tournament, which will be produced by the PCB and broadcasted live on PTV Sports. Iqbal Sheikh will lead the playing control team in the September 30’s National T20 Cup opener between Northern and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while Faisal Khan Afridi and Zameer Haider will perform on-field duties. Qaiser Waheed and Aftab Gillani will be the third and fourth umpires, respectively.
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Prof Mohammad Javed Malik will be the match referee for the October 18 final, which will be umpired by Ahsan Raza and Asif Yaqoob. Rashid Riaz will be in the third umpire’s box and Shozab Raza will perform the duties of fourth umpire. The six-member PCB Elite Panel of match referees includes Ali Naqvi (Lahore), Iftikhar Ahmed (Karachi), Muhammad Anees (Lahore), Muhammad Iqbal Sheikh (Hyderabad), Nadeem Arshad (Faisalabad) and Prof Mohammad Javed Malik (Multan).
The 14-member PCB elite panel of umpires is Ahsan Raza (Lahore), Aftab Hussain Gillani (Bahawalpur), Asif Yaqoob (Islamabad), Faisal Khan Afridi (Sargodha), Ghaffar Kazmi (Lahore), Imran Javed (Karachi), Nasir Hussain Snr (Lahore), Qaiser Waheed (Lahore), Rashid Riaz Waqar (Lahore), Saqib Khan (Abbottabad), Shozab Raza (Lahore), Syed Imtiaz Iqbal (Karachi), Waleed Yaqub (Lahore) and Zameer Haider (Lahore).
Umpires and referees manager Bilal Qureshi said: “The match officials appointed for the National T20 are the best we have in the country and this event is an ideal opportunity for them to display their skills and make a mark. There has been no match referee in the ICC elite panel from Pakistan since 2004, while the last umpire to make a Test debut was Nadeem Ghauri, 15 years ago. The PCB is keen to develop and groom its match officials so that there is Pakistan’s representation in the ICC’s elite panel and, in this relation, will be providing maximum matches to these elite officials to showcase their skills in the 2020-21 season.