The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced the central contracts for the men’s national cricket team. Hassan Ali and Mohammad Rizwan have been promoted to category A, while Captain Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi retained their positions in the ‘A’ category.
Azhar Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Fawad Alam, Shadab Khan and Yasir Shah are included in category-B.
The players included in category C are: Abid Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Nawaz, Nauman Ali and Sarfaraz Ahmed.
Imran Butt, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir have been placed in Emerging Category.
According to the press release issued by the PCB, the list has been finalised by the panel that comprised Director-International Cricket, Zakir Khan, chief selector Muhammad Wasim and Director-High Performance, Nadeem Khan, who also consulted head coach Misbah-ul-Haq and captain Babar Azam as part of the process. The provisional list was then shared with Chief Executive Wasim Khan, before it was approved by PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani.
“Selecting 20 players amongst a big pool of quality cricketers is always a challenging task. I would like to thank the panel for their diligent work in selecting the 2021-22 central contract list against an agreed criteria,” PCB Chief Executive Wasim Khan said in a statement.
“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.”
The 12-month contracts will run from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.
