The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has finalised 25 players who will be awarded the central contracts for this year, while 10 players have been dropped from the list which includes Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad, who has reportedly tested positive for doping.
Shehzad was tested positive for alleged use of marijuana during the Pakistan Cup and has now been dropped from PCB's centrally-contracted players.
As decided in a recent PCB meet, the number of players given the central contracts have been reduced, while the salaries for players under all categories — Category A, B, C and D — have been doubled.
The monthly salaries of players in Category A have been increased from Rs0.5m to Rs1m, while players in Category B will be getting Rs0.7m instead of the Rs345,000 they usually get.
Meanwhile in Category C, the salaries has been increased from Rs198,000 to Rs0.3m, while Category D sees the players’ salaries increasing from Rs0.1m to Rs0.3m.
Babar Azam has been promoted to Category A from Category B and joins captain Sarfraz Ahmed, Shoaib Malik, Yasir Shah, Muhammad Amir and Azhar Ali; Muhammad Hafeez, meanwhile, has been demoted from Category A to Category B.
The total number of players in Category B has been dropped from 11 to seven which includes Hafeez, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman and Shadab Khan, while Shan Masood, Sohail Khan and Sami Aslam are expected to lose their Category B contracts.
In Category C, four payers including Wahab Riaz, Junaid Khan, Haris Sohail and Muhammad Abbas have retained their spots, while Imamul Haq, Muhammad Nawaz and Usman Shinwari have been promoted to Category C from Category D.
The number of players in Category D has been reduced from 14 to five and includes Rumman Raees, Usman Salahuddin, Rahat Ali while Asif Ali and Hussain Talat have been added.
Meanwhile, Ahmed Shehzad has lost his contract following his positive result of dope test along eight other players that includes Muhammad Rizwan, Muhammad Asghar, Muhammad Hasan, Umer Amin, Mir Hamza, Bilal Asif, Aamer Yamin and Asif Zakir.