PCB awards central contract to 31 players

E-Paper | May 08, 2026

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced its Players Central Contracts for the calendar year 2014 to 31 players.

Moin Khan, chief selector and manager of the Pakistan team said that “the players’ individual performance incentives have also been made more competitive”.

The win bonus for series wins against the top three ICC ranked teams as well as India has been raised from 200pc to 250pc.

The committee that finalised the list of players being offered central contracts consisted of PCB’s Director International Cricket, Zakir Khan, manager of Team Pakistan as well as chief selector Moin Khan and Mohammad Akram.

“The committee took three factors into consideration while finalising the list: fitness level, future potential, form and performance,” said Zakir Khan.

The central contract for the year 2014 is distributed in four categories with following players as its signatories:

Category ‘A’

Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Hafeez, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi and Junaid Khan.

Category ‘B’

Younis Khan, Ahmed Shehzad, Umar Akmal and Umar Gul.

Category ‘C’

Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Adnan Akmal, Khurram Manzoor, Nasir Jamshed and Abdul Rehman.

Category ‘D’

Sohaib Maqsood, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Bilawal Bhatti, Sharjeel Khan, Zulfiqar Babar, Fawad Alam, Ehsan Adil, Mohammad Irfan, Wahab Riaz, Raza Hasan, Umar Amin, Harris Sohail, Rahat Ali, Shaan Masood, Mohammad Talha and Anwar Ali.

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Salma

Jun 05, 2014 08:30pm

Younis Khan in B category? something is very wrong. The greatest active player disrespected is a matter of sorrow.

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Khizar Hayat

Jun 05, 2014 09:19pm

What is Hafeez doing in list A? What was the reason to demote Younis?

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Vaqaar

Jun 05, 2014 09:32pm

good, now they just have to win win and win , good to see so many young batsmen :) and amazed on the num of left handed batters

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mdsr

Jun 05, 2014 11:04pm

What about shoaib Malik and Kamran Akmal

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Tony Shah

Jun 05, 2014 11:36pm

JUNIAD and Hafeez are not Category A players. Younis Khan should be in Category A.

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NKK

Jun 05, 2014 11:44pm

Very strange to see Younis in category "B". One fails to understand to what is the criteria to categorize these contracts? The only reason to keep the "Professor" in the top category seems to be his friendship with the captain. Sarfraz and Fawad also deserved some better places.....

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Dr. Muhammad Asghar Saqib

Jun 05, 2014 11:49pm

Strange logic! The most technical batsman and one of the finest batsmen in the history of Pakistan (test) cricket is in category B (I am talking about Younis Khan), and mediocre players and dead-track bullies (Hafeez and Afridi) in category A! Great service to Pakistan cricket: very well done PCB!

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Safdar

Jun 06, 2014 12:22am

@Dr. Muhammad Asghar Saqib When non-cricketers (Subhan Ahmed and Najam Sethi) are at the helm of PCB's affairs then one should expect nothing but these kind of decisions...More to come....

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Dr. Muhammad Asghar Saqib

Jun 06, 2014 01:07am

The PCB is dishonouring test cricket which is the real cricket. The Australians were at the top of the world cricket not because they had won many one-day world cups but because they were consistently beating every test-playing nation. The world would only recognise us the best team if we could beat, in test cricket. This should be the target; not the world cup (it would bring more glory to the nation than even winning 10 consecutive world cups): if the PCB continue to ignore test cricket we most likely will not even perform in one-dayers and twenty20. The pay structures for players playing in one-dayers and twenty20 should be much lower compared to test cricketers. Obviously PCB is also not helping the cause of test cricket when they schedule much reduced number of test matches for the team compared to one-dayers and twenty20: one can check the number of test matches we play compared to Australia, England, South Africa and India.

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Dr. Sehar Khan

Jun 06, 2014 01:59am

@Tony Shah ... Junaid and Hafeez in A category...not a good choice.

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kirther

Jun 06, 2014 02:49am

I think Misbah is not as good as Younus --why category B for Yunus Khan?

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Jun 06, 2014 05:40am

i think younis is grade B due to only playing tests. which pakistan doesn't do and will not be doing much of in coming future. i agree that junaid and hafeez are no way category A players. and finally good to see kamran akmal and malik dropped from contracts....but for how long ?

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WHYONLYPUNJABISINTHETEAM

Jun 06, 2014 10:08am

Hafeez belongs in Category "D" period!

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bilal

Jun 06, 2014 11:44am

Politics yet again. Afridi should retire and give room to others. Younus is still the best test batsman we have. PCB needs to revise categories

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Harmony

Jun 06, 2014 01:08pm

Good nothing for Malik and Kamran Akmal.

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Nav

Jun 06, 2014 01:39pm

What a joke..Africa and hafeez in category A and a brilliant player like you us khan in category B, what a joke. What else you can expect from sethi....

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mojesab

Jun 06, 2014 06:58pm

Everyone seems worried about the players no even talks about PCB chairman Mr. Sethi.

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sumit

Jun 06, 2014 09:31pm

Shahid Afridi in A category reflects why Pakistan is not doing well.

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Raisur Rahman

Jun 07, 2014 09:42am

I feel sorry for the Great Younis Khan, he has served Pakistan Cricket with result and personal Contribution.

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optimist

Jun 07, 2014 10:53am

Why is Adnan Akmal preferred over Sarfaraz. Why are Sohaib Maqsood, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Fawad Alam, and Anwar Ali.in category D. Younus Khan and Mohammad Irfan should have been in category A.

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Jun 07, 2014 10:57am

IRFAN in CAT-D? Unbelievable PCB.

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Ahmed

Jun 07, 2014 08:25pm

My initial reaction was how can they place younus in category B and Hafeez in category A. In the past 20 years, PCB has slowly and graudally turned into Punjab Cricket Board. However, I have lot of respect for Najam Sethi and yesterday saw his full interview with Fareeha Idrees. He seems to have good logical rantionale for this so we should wait and see if this criteria is consistently applied over everybody. His reason is that players who play more than one format get better category then those who play less number of formats. Then he said on this criteria younus would have been "c" but then they added further criteria that players having played more than 50 tests or those who have captained in the past, their category be raised by one notch. Fair enough. Hope this is applied without consideration from where the player is coming from. And the litmus test would be how politically strong candidates like Malik, Kakmal, Wahab Riaz and Farhat are treated in the future - in the past selectors have been selecting these individuals on zero performance in last 5 years.

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Fahad

Jun 07, 2014 08:53pm

Should have swapped Younis and Hafeez around. And moved Irfan to C. Rest is fine.

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