Pakistan Cricket Board has announced a central contract for 33 cricketers. Out of these 33, 6 have been listed in the A category.
Apart from increasing the price of central contracts, players' test, one day and T-20 match fees has also been increased to some extent.
This year the payers listed in the A category will get 8.45lac rupees.
The category B players will get around 5.5 lac rupees, C category players will get around 3.45 lac rupees while D category players will get around 2 lac rupees and the first time included E category players will get around 1 lac rupees.
The A category players will get a compensation of 11.5 lac rupees as compensation for playing test cricket.
Pakistan Cricket Board has included 6 players in the A category. The players included in the category are captain Sarfaraz Ahmed, Azhar Ali, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Amir, Yasir Shah and Babar Azam.
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In the previous year's central contract Babar Azam was in the B category while Mohammad Hafeez has been removed from the A category and this year has been included in the B category.
The B category includes players like Mohammad Hafeez, Faheem Ashraf, Asad Shafiq, Hassan Ali, Fakhar Zaman and Shadaab Khan.
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C category includes Mohammad Abbas, Wahab Riyaz, Junaid Khan, Haris Suhail, Imam Ul Haq, Mohammad Nawaz, Usman Khan Shenwari, Shan Masood and Ammar Wasim.
Rumann Raees, Aasif Ali, Rahat Ali, Usman Salahuddin and Hussain Talat are included in the D category.
The first time introduced category E includes Bilal Asif, Sa'd Ali, Mohammad Rizwan, Shaheen Afridi, Sahibzada Farhan, Umair Asif and Mir Hamza.
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Ahmad Shehzad, who was last year included in the central contract's C category, has not found a place in any of the categories this year because of his involvement in doping.
My comments: Looking at the efforts Pakistan Cricket Board has put in to increase the earnings of the cricketers is commendable. Moreover, they have included another category in the central contracts which again is a good sign for the interests of cricket players. Though, I think, the fee the players are getting is still very little but it would be good enough for the players considering the previous years' money they were getting.
Mohammad Hafeez' inclusion in B category is understandable as he has not performed well for a long time now but at the same time Babar Azam's inclusion in the A category isn't the logical thing as well. For he hasn't produced any goods for Pakistan in test cricket at all. His performances in test cricket have been very dismal and the best they should've given him was the B category.
There's another player, Rumann Raees, whose category doesn't fit in with my thinking. Rumann has been an exceptional bowler for Pakistan whenever he has been given a chance and I think he should've been included in C category instead of D.
Translated from https://www.bbc.com/urdu/sport-45086945
The article was originally posted on my scorum account.