The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) threw up a few surprises while releasing the new list of central contracts today with young pacer Junaid Khan bracketed in category 'A' while senior batsman Younis Khan relegated to group 'B'.
Only five players including skipper Misbah ul Haq, Muhammad Hafeez, Shahid Afridi, Saeed Ajmal and left-arm pacer Junaid got 'A' level deals in a list of 31 contracted players.
The top category will carry a monthly retainer of around 400,000 Pakistan Rupees as the board also announced encouraging pay hikes and other incentives for the players.
The board did not announce the exact monthly salaries for each category neither the basis on which the contracts have been given to so many players and Younis's demotion from 'A' to 'B' also went unanswered.
Although Younis has not been picked to play one-day internationals since March, 2013 by the selectors and has just played Test matches since than but Afridi has also stuck to ODIs and T20 matches since 2010.
Younis, who retired from T20 internationals in 2009, is placed in his category with Ahmed Shehzad, Umar Akmal and pace bowler Umar Gul.
The board instead of reducing the number of contracted players as it had indicated earlier introduced a new category 'D' in which 16 players were given contracts for the year.
The board has delayed announcing the list of contracted players for this year by atleast five months but chief selector and national team manager, Moin Khan said the contracts would be effective from January 1.
