LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday warned its centrally-contracted players to meet fitness standards or lose up to 15 percent of their salary.

The fourth term fitness tests of these players will be held at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore on Jan 6-7.

All the available centrally-contracted players will attend the tests, which are aligned with their contracts. Pacers Wahab Riaz and Mohammad Amir and leg-spinner Shadab Khan, who are currently engaged in the Bangladesh Premier League, undergo the tests on Jan 20-21.

The tests, to be conducted by Pakistan national team’s strength and conditioning coach Yasir Malik, cover five major areas — fat analysis, strength, endurance, speed endurance and cross-fit — and will carry equal weightage.

Pakistan in recent top-level international competitions have performed poorly. The country failed to reach the semi-finals of the 50-over World Cup staged in England last year, and won only one of their last six Test matches. They also fared badly in ODIs, winning just nine of their 25 and only one of their ten Twenty20 Internationals, leaving the team as low as seventh in Tests and sixth in ODIs.

The green-shirts somehow managed to maintain their world number one ranking in T20 Internationals — however by just one point.

Head coach-cum-chief selector Misbah-ul-Haq had stressed fitness will be paramount as he tries to lift the standards.

“All the available centrally contracted players will attend the two-day testing on Jan 6 and 7 in Lahore and any player failing to meet the minimum fitness requir­ements will be fined 15 per cent of his monthly retainer,” said a PCB media release on Friday.

The cut will be maintained until the player gets fit again, it added.

Any player failing consecutive tests “will risk the chances of retaining his central contract category and may face demotion,” cautioned the PCB.

Currently, 19 top players are under contract in ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ categories and get monthly salaries ranging from Rs1.1 million to Rs0.5 million based on their contract.

Pakistan are scheduled to play three T20 Internationals and two Tests at home against Bangladesh starting in January, but pending clearance from the Bangladesh Cricket Board.

Centrally-contracted players:

Category ‘A’: Babar Azam (Central Punjab), Sarfraz Ahmed (Sindh), Yasir Shah (Balochistan)

Category ‘B’: Asad Shafiq (Sindh), Azhar Ali (Central Punjab), Haris Sohail (Balochistan), Imam-ul-Haq (Balochistan), Mohammad Abbas (Southern Punjab), Shadab Khan (Northern), Shaheen Shah Afridi (Northern), Wahab Riaz (Southern Punjab)

Category ‘C’: Abid Ali (Sindh), Hasan Ali (Central Punjab), Fakhar Zaman (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Imad Wasim (Northern), Mohammad Amir (Northern), Mohammad Rizwan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Shan Masood (Southern Punjab), Usman Shinwari (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa)

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2020