Younus demoted, Junaid on the rise

Pakistan Cricket Board releases new central contracts for 31 players .

KARACHI:

Former Pakistan captain Younus Khan was demoted to the B category, whereas left-arm pacer Junaid Khan was promoted to the A category after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) released central contracts for 31 players on Thursday. 

Altogether, the board has placed five players in the A category, while four have been chosen for the B tier, resulting in a 50%  cut in terms of players in the group — previously there were eight.

The C category saw eight players being reduced to six while the D category (stipend) has 16 players as compared to the nine that were awarded placements earlier.



The committee that finalised the list of cricketers consisted of PCB Director International Cricket Zakir Khan, manager-cum-chief selector Moin Khan and Mohammad Akram.

Younus, who led Pakistan to their World Twenty20 triumph in 2009, was demoted for being active in only Test cricket as of late, while his one-day career is yet to be resurrected. The middle-order batsman had recently stated that he would like to make a comeback in one-dayers as a player of his calibre should not be limited to just one format.

Meanwhile, Junaid has been playing in Test and one-dayers regularly, but his T20 appearances have been limited over the past 12 months. He was placed in the A category alongside Test and one-day skipper Misbahul Haq, Mohammad Hafeez, Saeed Ajmal and Shahid Afridi.

On the other hand, consistent batsman Ahmed Shehzad has been promoted to the B category after his strong performance with the bat and joins Younus, Umar Akmal and Umar Gul in the list.

Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Nasir Jamshed and Abdur Rehman have been demoted to the C category from their earlier spots in the B tier, and they join Khurram Manzoor and Adnan Akmal in the third group.

Maqsood, Bhatti, Alam part of D category

Those placed in the D category include Sohaib Maqsood, Bilawal Bhatti, Fawad Alam, Raza Hasan, Umar Amin, Shan Masood and Mohammad Talha alongside Sarfaraz Ahmed, Sharjeel Khan, Zulfiqar Babar, Ehsan Adil, Mohammad Irfan, Harris Sohail, Rahat Ali and Anwar Ali.

Meanwhile, Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Taufeeq Umar, Aizaz Cheema, Mohammad Sami and Faisal Iqbal have all been excluded from the list.

“The committee took three factors into consideration while finalising the list; these were form and performance, fitness level and future potential,” said Zakir Khan, according to the PCB press release.

Meanwhile, Moin stated, “The PCB has enhanced the monthly retainer for all categories by 25%. The remuneration for Test matches stands increased by 25%, while for ODIs it is 10%.

“The win bonus for series wins against the top three International Cricket Council teams as well as India has been raised from 200% to 250%.

“The players’ share of the logo fee has also seen an upward revision by 15%, while some of the individual performance incentives have also been made more competitive.”

The revision in the above remunerations will be back-dated to January 1, 2014.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2014.

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