11 July 2004	Sunday	22 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

NEW DELHI, July 10: The "drama and suspense" surrounding Indian players' contracts continues, with Board of Control for Cricket in India - on request of the players - deciding to defer announcing list of eligible players till after Asia Cup , as involved players are believed to be not completely happy with the deal.

It is understood that the process came to a halt following lack of consensus among players, who were not in favour of gradation being determined on merit by BCCI's screening committee. Instead, they would prefer it was done on seniority, in terms of number of Tests and one-dayers played.

The contract would be graded in three categories - A, B and C. Players in Grade A would be paid Rs 60lakh annually, Grade B would get Rs 30 lakh and Grade C Rs 15 lakh.

It appears that players who fall in Grade B - which is likely to have largest representation - are unhappy with the arrangement since monetary difference between two grades is quite big.

Also, issue of payments for reserve players being reduced to 50% of match fees, from 90%, has not gone down well with cricketers.

BCCI had originally scheduled announcement for Friday, but Secretary S.K. Nair on Saturday said that cricketers wanted more details to be worked out on some of clauses of contract draft and more time.

"There is an attempt from both sides (players and BCCI) to reach an acceptable agreement," he said. "The players want some more details to be worked out in some of clauses and that may take some time."

While Nair would not like to be drawn into exactly what these details were, he said there should be no "ill feeling" later.

He would not accept players were unhappy with some clauses and asserted: "They understand the situation, and know we are making an honest attempt to create contract system. We will need more time to work things out. However, nothing will be done during Asia Cup, since we do not want to distract players.

"There is time between Asia Cup and our next international engagement and hopefully we will be able to sort this out then."-Agencies