No new contracts offered to World Cup-bound Pak players

Karachi, Feb 11 (PTI) Pakistan''s World Cup squad todayleft for Bangladesh with the players not being offered newcentral contracts by the Board and also having half of theirmatch fees deducted for an abandoned ODI in the recent tour ofNew Zealand.

Sources in the board confirmed that the players were notoffered the new contracts when the PCB Chairman Ijaz Butthosted a farewell dinner for them at the National CricketAcademy last night.

"Although the board had been working on finalizing thenew central contracts and the national selectors had alsosubmitted a shortlist of players to be considered for thecontracts the board could not prepare them in time to offerthem to the players before the World Cup," one source said.

He said that apparently the Board also wanted to wait andsee the outcome of the World Cup as the tournament coulddecide the future of some senior players including ShoaibAkhtar, Abdul Razzaq and Muhammad Yousuf who was not selectedfor the mega event.

"There is also the issue of some senior players likeDanish Kaneria and Shoaib Malik not being cleared to play forthe national team by the integrity committee of the Board.

Although Kaneria was in category A of the last contractsoffered in 2010," the source added.

He said the players were also shocked to learn that halfof their match fees for the second one-day internationalagainst New Zealand at Queenstown had been deducted as thematch was abandoned due to rain.

"Only five overs were possible in the match and underclauses in the central contracts given to players last year ifa match is not held completely they lose half of their matchfees," the source said.

He said many of the players were not happy to learn aboutlosing half their match fees but preferred to remain silent asthey are leaving for Bangladesh for the World Cup.