By IANS,
Karachi : The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the country’s players in the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) have hit a roadblock over the central contract.
The ICL players asked for central contracts before snapping their ties with the rebel Twenty20 Indian league.
However, PCB’s chief operating officer Saleem Altaf Thursday made it clear that the central contracts will only be given to the ICL players once they leave the league and start performing on the domestic circuit.
“The central contracts are given to players on the basis of their performance for the Pakistan team and in domestic matches. We have already given the contracts to 27 of our leading cricketers and have no plans to extend the list in the near future,” he said.
Earlier, some of the country’s ICL players had come out in open with the demand. Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, one of the popular Pakistani cricketer who moved to ICL, Wednesday asked for finacial security from the board before terminating his ICL contract.
“I want some financial protection and that can come in the form of a central contract with the board,” Rana told reporters.
The central contracts awarded by the PCB are divided into three categories with the players getting paid monthly salaries.
Rana is one of the three ICL players who were initially named in a 30-man preliminary squad for the 2009 World Twenty20 Championship to be played in England in June.
However, the three players that also included all-rounder Abdul Razzaq and opener Imran Nazir were later dropped from the list with the board saying that it would consider them once the players are cleared by the International Cricket Council (ICC).