The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will aim to retain their crown as the eight-team President’s Cup Grade-I 2025-26 begins tomorrow, with the Pakistan Cricket Board announcing that the month-long 50-over tournament will open across four Karachi venues from 8 December.
The event will span 31 matches until 25 December, culminating in two semi-finals on 22 and 23 December before the champion is declared. All eight participating sides will feature in a single-league round-robin format, with four fixtures scheduled in each of the seven rounds.
The PCB confirmed that the entire tournament will be streamed live, with Tapmad carrying the broadcasts in Pakistan and the PCB YouTube channel covering international viewership. League games will be staged during the day, with toss timings fixed at 9am and the first ball at 9:30am.
Opening-round contests feature Ghani Glass facing Pakistan Television (PTV) at the HPC Oval Ground, while WAPDA will challenge SNGPL at the KCCA Stadium. KRL meet Sahir Associates at Naya Nazimabad Stadium, and defending champions SBP begin their title defence against OGDCL at the UBL Sports Complex. Venues for the semi-finals and the final will be revealed later.
Teams will compete for PKR 5 million in prize money for the winners and PKR 2.5 million for the runners-up. Awards of PKR 100,000 each will be given to the tournament’s best batter, bowler, wicketkeeper and overall player. Players of the match during league games and semi-finals will receive PKR 25,000, while the final’s standout performer will earn PKR 50,000.
This year’s captains include Moeez Ghani (Ghani Glass), Iftikhar Ahmed (KRL), Adil Amin (OGDCL), Ammad Butt (PTV), Asim Ali Nasir (Sahir Associates), Shan Masood (SNGPL), Imran Butt (SBP) and Khalid Usman (WAPDA).
Sahir Associates enter the Grade-I circuit after progressing through the President’s Trophy Grade-II event, which they clinched earlier this year between April and June.
A detailed roster for all Grade-I departmental squads has been released for the 2025-26 season, featuring experienced performers and emerging talent across Ghani Glass, KRL, OGDCL, PTV, Sahir Associates, SNGPL, SBP and WAPDA.