PCB bows under senior players’ pressure, changes match fee policy

Four senior players of the Pakistan team have forced the Pakistan Cricket Board to bow down to their demands and tweak their policy of match fee in accordance with their demands. Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Amir, and Wahab Riaz the four senior pros will now be given category A match fee even after not being part of the Central contract list.

This is a departure from the PCB’s policy of paying category C match fees to all the non contracted players.  

Reasoning the move a PCB spokesperson told ESPNCricinfo, "The four players made a logical and reasonable request to the PCB prior to the Zimbabwe series.”

"The PCB, taking into consideration their seniority and accepting that their request has merit, agreed to pay their match fees in accordance with Category A scales for all matches they will play from the series against Zimbabwe until 30 June 2021," he added.

Both Malik, 38, and Hafeez, 40 were removed from the central contract list in 2019 while Wahab and Amir were put in category C of the list in early 2019 after they opted to retire from Tests to focus on their white-ball careers. After a while, they were removed completely from the list.

All four have remained key members of Pakistan set up in the last 18 months and Wahab and Hafeez are also part of the 35 member squad that departs for New Zealand on Monday. If these two play any match on the tour, they would be given a category A fee.


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