The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday announced the central contract list for the upcoming season based on the performance of the players. This list came into force following the approval of the 2021-22 fiscal year budget by the governing board.
The central contract list features names of the top 20 men cricketers in the country, including three emerging cricketers. Also, the match fee has unified across all formats. The noticeable entrants to the Grade A category are wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan and frontline pacer Hasan Ali.
The list was finalized after discussions between the panel of directors, head coach Misbah-ul-Haq and current first-team captain Babar Azam. Following this, the PCB chairman Ehsan Mani gave the final approval, putting the list into force. The 12- month contracts will be valid from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.
The list comprises three categories and is as follows:
Category A: Babar Azam, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi.
Category B: Fakhar Zaman, Faheem Ashraf, Azhar Ali, Fawad Alam, Shadab Khan and Yasir Shah.
Category C: Abid Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Nawaz, Nauman Ali, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Mohammad Hasnain.
The three emerging players included in the list under the emerging players’ category are Imran Butt, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir.
Category A player receives no salary hike whatsoever. While an appraisal of 15, 20 and 25 per cent in Tests, ODI and T20I respectively, have been given to Category B players. Category C and emerging players are due to bagging an even bigger pay rise.
PCB Chief, Wasim Khan, addressed the media and said, “Selecting 20 players amongst a big pool of quality players is always a challenging task. In the new list, we have seen eight new players emerge who have now gained central contracts. Due to the competitive nature of the central contract system, nine players who had contracts in 2020-21 have sadly missed out on this occasion. The door remains firmly open for these players and they will continue to remain in the plans of the selectors.”