Sports: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced the new annual central retainership contracts list with former captain Babar Azam and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan staying in the top bracket - Category A. Interestingly, Babar and Rizwan were the only ones in the top category with pacer Shaheen Afridi, who formed the trio with them last year in Category A, getting dropped to Category B. Shaheen, Naseem Shah and Test captain Shan Masood formed the trio in the second bracket.

Masood, who recently led Pakistan to a 2-1 Test series win against England at home, has been promoted by two categories from D to B, however, despite being the Test captain, he was in the second category. Naseem, on the other hand, stayed in Category B. Among the notable omissions was veteran wicketkeeper-batter Sarfaraz Ahmed, pacer Hasan Ali and white-ball star Fakhar Zaman, probably for voicing his opinion in favour of Babar Azam and against PCB and the newly-elected selection committee. 

Five players were awarded the central contract for the first time. "As part of the PCB’s strategy to incentivise, encourage and reward talented and emerging cricketers, five players have been offered central contracts for the first time. They are Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Irfan Khan and Usman Khan. These players have been placed in Category D," a PCB statement said.

The heroes of Pakistan's series win against England, the spin duo of Sajid Khan and Noman Ali have been placed in Category C along with vice-captain Saud Shakeel, who has been promoted from Category D. Like Shaheen, Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf were other high-profile names to be dropped in a category from B to C.

PCB's central contract list for 2024-25 (men)

Category A: Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan - 2

Category B: Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood - 3

Category C: Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Saud Shakeel and Shadab Khan - 9

Category D: Aamir Jamal, Haseebullah, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Hurraira, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr and Usman Khan - 11

Other players to miss out from the contracts list from the last time around are - Zaman Khan, Shahnawaz Dahani, Imad Wasim, Iftikhar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf and Usama Mir.

After the England Tests, Pakistan next will be in action from November four in a white-ball series against and in Australia.