Staff Report

LAHORE: The awarding of central contract to 21 players has landed the Pakistan Cricket Board in a new trouble, with senior cricketers opposing the PCB decision, SAMAA reports.

Sources said a group of senior players had expressed their reservations over the new contracts and majority of them would not sign their agreement papers prior to the Sri Lanka tour.

Pakistan team is all set to leave for Sri Lanka where the Green Shirts will play three tests, five ODIs and two Twenty20 matches from May 29.

Mohammad Hafeez will lead his side as captain of the national Twenty20 team while Misbah-ul-Haq has been selected as skipper for tests and one-day internationals.

PCB on Saturday announced a list of 21 players who will receive pay increases in new contract, except Kamran Akmal and Abdul Razzaq.

Though the PCB has raised players’ monthly contract retainers by 25 percent and match fees by another 10 percent, however, senior players describe it ‘insufficient’, and majority of them would not sign the agreements prior to the Sri Lanka tour.

Contracted players:

Category A: Misbah-ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Umar Gul, Mohammad Hafeez, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Rehman, Umar Akmal.

Category B: Shoaib Malik, Taufiq Umar, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq, Junaid Khan, Aizaz Cheema.

Category C: Sarfaraz Ahmed, Adnan Akmal, Hammad Azam, Wahab Riaz, Imran Farhat, Faisal Iqbal, Nasir Jamshed. -- SAMAA