The Pakistan team, under the leadership of Babar Azam, has been knocked out of the group stage of the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, in the Caribbean and the United States of America (USA), on the back of which result, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has decided to construct a new central contract list for the future.
But the reports have claimed that the players could go on to refuse the new list of central contracts if they are demoted from the current stage on the back of their poor performances.
This has been a huge concern for the board, given if the players go on to deny the central contract list, then they won’t come under the regulations of the board and could opt to play freely without any rules and restrictions, and that will eventually break their domestic structure.
The PCB is, at the moment, waiting for the head coach Gary Kirsten who will make the decisions on the subject, while the senior manager and the former left-arm pace bowler Wahab Riaz will present a report that will review the matter before the final decision being taken.
Pakistan Cricket Board decide to review central contracts after an embarrassing exit
The ‘Men in Green’ had a very frustrating season in the Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, where they started off quite poorly on the back of two back-to-back defeats over the United States and the arch-rivals India.
At the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, the 2009 champions couldn’t come up with a smooth performance with the bat in hand, which eventually didn’t help them in the total. Babar Azam was struggling on the slow surface while on the other hand, the opponents were using their bowling plans quite well.
But once the pressure mounted over them, they kept on looking at each other, they failed to take the smarter route, while a few decisions they took were of no meaning, like keeping the attacking batter Fakhar Zaman in the non-strike during the super-over of the game against the left-arm pacer Saurabh Netravalkar, to whom the batter would have got the easy angle to hit.
Against India too, the runners-up from the last season was ahead in the game, during the 120-run chase, from being a position of 48-runs required at run-a-ball, with eight wickets in hand. But once they lost Mohammad Rizwan, the period required to see someone else stand up and raise their hand, rather than going down as they did and falling short by six runs.
The Pakistan board has decided to establish a new selection committee to make the final decision on the central contract list of the players. However, their salaries would remain the same.
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First, it was getting known that only the two senior members of the side- the wicketkeeper batter Mohammad Rizwan, who has been struggling with the low strike rate in the modern T20Is, and the team’s captain Babar Azam- who is not only going through a lean patch with the bat but also hasn’t impressed with the leadership duties, could be the ones whose contracts were expected to get modified.
They were expected to get demoted from Category A in the central contracts, as the work is in progress. Before the start of their home Test series over Bangladesh, in the second week of July, the management is also looking to change a few systems in the structure of Pakistan cricket for better developments in the future.