Babar Azam in category A of Pak contract list

Senior players like Muhammed Hafeez and Haris Sohail were left out of a list of 20 Pakistan players who were awarded central contracts by the country’s cricket board with a 25 per cent hike in annual retainership.

Captain and top batsman Babar Azam, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi were placed in the highest bracket of Category A.

The board, however, did not disclose the exact amounts to be paid to the players.

Those missing out included Hafeez, who was offered a mid year contract early this year, Sohail, Asad Shafiq, Muhammad Abbas, Imad Wasim and Shan Masood.

Seniors like Wahab Riaz and Shoaib Malik still remain out of the list like last year.

Interestingly the PCB has also dropped young batsman, Haider Ali and fast bowler Naseem Shah from the contracts list in the emerging category.

The PCB announced an across-the-board 25 per cent increase in the monthly retainers for all four categories.

The board said it was announcing an enhanced and performance-based central contract list for 2021-22 for 20 elite men cricketers in which match fee across all formats has also been equalised.

A Board official explained that previously, match fees of players differed in different categories in all formats based on seniority.

But now that has been changed. Increases have been made in match fees of B, C and emerging categories in Test, ODI and T20 formats so that now all players get the same fees, the Board stated.

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