Incentive: A much-awaited payraise for national cricketers

Salaries increased by 25%; match-fees go up by 10%; Asia Cup winning squad gets Rs400,000 per player.

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has increased the players’ salaries across all three categories as it prepares to announce the much-delayed central contracts for the year 2012 today.

All three categories stand to earn an increment of 25%, as learnt by The Express Tribune, with the match-fees for all three formats making a 10% jump.

A Category A player for example, will now make Rs313,000 per month and also earn Rs385,000 for each Test appearance, Rs330,000 for taking part in a One-Day International and pocketing Rs275,000 for a Twenty20. The same category saw the player earn Rs350,000 for a Test, Rs 300,000 for a ODI and Rs250,000 last year.

A Category B player will now earn Rs218,000 per month (previously Rs175,000). A Test appearance will fetch him Rs330,000 (previously Rs300,000), an ODI Rs275,000 (previously Rs250,000) and a Twenty20 appearance will now be worth Rs220,000 (previously Rs200,000).

Similarly, in Category C, a player will make Rs130,000 per month (previously Rs100,000). The same player will earn Rs275,000 for a Test (previously Rs250,000), Rs220,000 for an ODI (previously Rs200,000) and Rs165,000 for a Twenty20 (Rs150,000).

In addition, a squad member not featuring in the playing-eleven, will receive 100% of his match fees. Previously the player was entitled to 50% of the match fees.

The increase has come as a welcome relief for the players who have put on an impressive show. Pakistan remained unbeaten in Test and ODI series last year. The start of 2012 also saw the team inflict a 3-0 whitewash on England in the Test series before Pakistan clinched the Asia Cup for the second time.

Clause on participation in international events

Meanwhile, the PCB has also decided to involve itself in players’ participation in foreign events like the Bangladesh Premier League and local championships that are not organised by the board itself.

The players will have to seek permission from the board before making themselves available and their participation is conditioned on the PCB’s permission.

UAE front-runner for Pak-Aus series

The UAE is likely to host Pakistan once again, now for the limited-overs series against Australia in the third week of August, according to Pakistan Cricket Board Director International Cricket Intikhab Alam.

Pakistan had ruled out playing the series – that includes One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and Twenty20s - in the UAE due to hot conditions and had instead focused on Sri Lanka. However, a refusal from Sri Lanka Cricket was followed by an offer from the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB). Alam said that UAE is ‘almost certain’ to act as the hosts where the team may scrap the ODIs and play a seven-match Twenty20 series instead. Malaysia, meanwhile, is also being considered to host the series.

“Australia is an expensive option,” Alam told The Express Tribune. “They suggested Darwin but that is going to prove very costly. We’re considering the ECB’s suggestion to delay the series until after Ramazan so that the conditions get better. We’ll also ask the ICC if we can only feature in seven Twenty20s and not play the ODIs.

“We’ll schedule it in such a way that the team can fly to Sri Lanka directly for the World Twenty20.” The seven-match Twenty20 series will mark good preparations for the mega event that starts in Sri Lanka in September.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2012.