The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Wednesday announced new central contracts for the national team players. Young pacer Naseem Shah and Iftikhar Ahmad have been awarded central contracts for the 2020-21 season. Naseem and Iftikhar are the two new names in the 18-man list however the likes of Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz and Hasan Ali have missed out. Naseem, who made his debut at the age of 16 late last year against Australia, became the youngest bowler to take a five-fer and a hat-trick in Test cricket. As a result, he has been placed in the C category alongside Fakhar Zaman, Imad Wasim, Imam-ul-Haq, Usman Shinwari and fellow new entrant Iftikhar.
The likes of Abid Ali, Mohammad Rizwan and Shan Masood have been rewarded with Category B contracts whereas Test specialist Yasir Shah and former skipper Sarfraz Ahmed has been demoted to Category B. The Pakistan coach also backed the decision to leave out Wahab and Amir with the seamers deciding to give up on Tests in order to focus more on white-ball cricket. Apart from the three usual categories, PCB also introduced a new Emerging Players' Category to reward youngsters who managed to impress in the recent past. Batsman Haider Ali and seamers Haris Rauf and Mohammad Hasnain are the three players named in the category.
PCB Men’s Central Contract List for 2020-21:
Category A: Azhar Ali, Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi
Category B: Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Haris Sohail, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Shan Masood, Yasir Shah
Category C: Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Imam-ul-Haq, Naseem Shah, Usman Shinwari
Emerging Players’ Category: Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain.
