Pakistan Cricket Board mulls cancelling central contracts for Shoaib Malik, Muhammad Hafeez

Senior Pakistan players Shoaib Malik, Junaid Khan and Muhammad Hafeez are set to lose their central PCB contracts for the next fiscal year. A meeting was held at the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) headquarters on Thursday to discuss the new central contracts structure but ended without a final decision.

"One thing is clear that the board will not be offering 30 to 33 players the new contracts and the list of contracted players is going to be cut down to around 18 to 20," one reliable source in the board said.

Although the players could get enhancements in their monthly salaries and match fees, the board has decided now to only award contracts to players who have done well in the last one year and have a future with the Pakistan team.

"It seems unlikely that Shoaib Malik, Hafeez, Junaid, and some others will get these central contracts now."

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Malik announced his retirement from ODIs after the World Cup and will only be playing T20 cricket from now onwards while left-arm pacer Muhammad Aamir has also announced his retirement from Tests and will only play limited-overs cricket.

"The board also doesn't feel that Hafeez has a long time ahead of him since he has also said goodbye to Test cricket while Junaid Khan's fitness has been a matter of concern for some time now," the source said.

Malik retires from ODIs 

Veteran Pakistan batsman-allrounder Shoaib Malik announced his retirement from ODI cricket following Pakistan's 94-run victory over Bangladesh in their final game of the group stage of the ongoing World Cup. The 37-year-old decided to hang up his boots after a two-decade-long career where he played a key role in the Pakistani batting line-up with many remarkable knocks for the Men in Green. 

Malik had previously said that he would retire following Pakistan's last match at the World Cup and did so on 6 July after failed to beat Bangladesh by the huge margin that was required in order for them to qualify to the semi-finals. 

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