The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced central contracts for the ongoing 2025-26 season. While every year the PCB's central contract news does not create a storm, this year, it has grabbed eyeballs, as the board has not allotted even a single player a Category A contract, which is given to country's biggest icons. Notably, even Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, & Shaheen Afridi have been demoted to category B.
The news comes after Pakistan displayed a dismal performance in 2024, failing to qualify for the event's Super 8 stage of the T20 World Cup. However, more ignominy was to be seen, as Pakistan crashed out of a home ICC event - the Champions Trophy earlier this year. The board seems to have had enough of mediocre performance, and hence, they have taken harsh measures. The new contracts will run from July 2025 to June 2026, seeing 30 players, who have been divided in Categories B, C & D.
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The Category B, which is the highest in the current contract, will see Pakistani players earn PKR 4.5 million per month (8.7 lakh). Category C players will get PKR 1.5 million per month (around 4.3 lakh), while the last category, D, will see players earning (around 2.1 lakh). Notably, last year, players in the A category earned PKR 4.5 million per month (around 13.1 lakh).
However, no player has been considered worthy enough to get a Category A contract. Notably, in addition to their monthly salaries, match fees have also been tweaked. Pakistani players will now get PKR 1.25 million per Test match, PKR 6.44 lakh for an ODI game, and 4.18 lakh per T20I game.
Know the BCCI players' central contract salaries
On the other hand, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), whose contract for 2024-25 run from October 2024 to September 2005 is divided into four categories - A+, A, B, & C. Unlike their Asian neighbors, India continue to reward their biggest stars - Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, & Ravindra Jadeja, who are in elite A+ category, each getting INR 7 crore per year. The category A sees KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Shubman Gill, Mohammed Shami, & Rishabh Pant, who each earn INR 5 crore annually.
The B category, comprising Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, and Shreyas Iyer, sees players getting INR 3 crore each. The last C category players, which include Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, and Rinku Singh, earn INR 1 crore each. There is no comparison between India players annual salary and Pakistan's as the former is miles ahead. While the latter has no one in category A, India's top stars are among the highest-paid in the world. Even Pakistan's B category player (1.57 crore) falls miles short of India's A category players, who earn INR 5 crore each.
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