July 27, 2007	Friday	Rajab 11, 1428

LAHORE, July 26: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has taken a first step to support the regional cricket associations by offering different financial packages while the cricketers playing at the regional level will also be getting a certain amount in remunerations under the new central contract policy.

Sources told Dawn that the board has decided to make three categories of the players at the regional level in which top 20 players of each region will get the central contracts.

Top five players will be taken in the ‘A’ category and they will get Rs 20,000 each per month for one year. Next top ten players will come in the ‘B’ category and will get Rs 15,000 apiece and the remaining five will fall in ‘C’ category and will receive Rs 10,000 each.

Furthermore, the playing eleven members of each region will get Rs 10,000 for every first class match. Besides that, all 15 players of a region will receive Rs 500 as daily allowance.

Despite the PCB initiative, however, sources said that remunerations offered to players were still less than satisfactory when compared to the policy of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) which had been paying a handsome amount to its affiliated city associations to distribute among the players and to run their affairs independently.

The BCCI had recently paid a huge amount of Rs 250 million to the Delhi Cricket Association (DCA) as its share, said the sources.

Sources also said that in the last season, the DCA paid Rs 110,000 to each player for one first-class match.

They further said the PCB had also decided to help the regional associations with financial help to run their affairs. The regional associations were asked to inform about their office expenses which included office-rent, purchase cost of fax, computer and furniture, salaries of office assistants, etc.

The PCB will also help the region in cricket development plan that include coaching schemes for different age groups. Furthermore, the PCB has also asked from the regions to inform about maintenance expenses of grounds in their respective areas other than those which are being controlled by the PCB.