Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz not given Pakistan central contracts

LAHORE – Cricketers Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz have not had their central contracts renewed.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Wednesday announced a list of 18 centrally-contracted players across three categories for 2020-2021, with Azhar Ali retaining the Test captaincy and Babar Azam handed the ODI responsibility.

Ali, Azam, and Shaheen Afridi are the only players in Category A, with former skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed demoted to Category B.

Pacer Amir, who has 259 wickets for Pakistan across all formats, retired from Tests in July 2019 but has been omitted from the Category C list for limited-overs players.

Left-arm Riaz has taken 228 wickets for his country and last appeared in a T20 international against Australia in November.

Both the fast bowlers had silently announced retirement from the five-day game without taking into confidence the country’s cricketing body.

Hasan Ali has also been not given a central contract.

However, Wahab accepted this with humility and congratulated all the players who received central contracts.

He even said that the “future of Pakistan cricket looks bright”.

Misbah-ul-Haq, the Pakistan head coach said: “The philosophy and criteria for this merit-based central contract list were simple and straightforward: the selectors reviewed player performances in the past 12 months and then looked ahead to our team requirements in the forthcoming 12 months.