Recently, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has introduced its domestic 50 over cricket tournament in a new avatar, which will now be known in the cricket world as the Champions One-Day Cup. So today on September 6, PCB has announced the names of the players for the captaincy of five teams in the upcoming tournament.

These five names include Pakistan’s T20 captain Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan, Shadab Khan, Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Haris. Talking about the names of the 5 teams, they are Lions, Wolves, Panthers, Dolphins and Stallions.

So despite the strained relations with the PCB, Shoaib Malik has been appointed as the mentor of the Stallions and Harris as the captain of the team. The management had earlier said that the T20 format suits Harris, but the fast bowler has not yet made it to the T20 International team, along with the T20 World Cup 2024.

Apart from Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq will be seen mentoring the Wolves team. Former cricketer Saqlain Mushtaq will be seen mentoring the Panthers, Sarfraz Ahmed the Dolphins and Waqar Younis the Lions team.

The tournament will start from September 12

The upcoming tournament will be played between 12th and 29th September. Like the previous season, the semi-finals have been replaced by playoffs. Fans will no longer get to see the semi-finals in it. Teams will directly make it to the playoffs and the finals.

Although there are no city names on the front or back of the teams, it is understood that Lahore for Lions, Karachi for Dolphins, Peshawar for Panthers, Faisalabad for Wolves and Sialkot for Stallions are likely to be added.

Apart from this, 8 days after the Champions ODI Cup ends, Pakistan is going to host England in a three-match ODI series. It will be interesting to see how Pakistan will perform against England after losing 0-2 in the Test series against Bangladesh?