The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced their annual contract list for the 2025-26 season. The PCB has come up with a big decision to demote star players Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan from the A category. Not only this, but there are no players in the A category in the contracts list. The move seems to be a disappointing one for the Pakistan cricket team, considering they are looking at building a team to go through a successful transition period.
Pakistan are going through a disappointing run currently. They were knocked out of the group stages of the marquee events like the ODI World Cup 2023 and the T20 World Cup 2024. There have been multiple captaincy and coaching changes in the team setup.
The board has handed out central contracts to the 30 male cricketers for the upcoming 2025-26 season. The contracts run from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026.
Pakistan central contracts 2025/26
Category B (10 players): Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Rizwan, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Shadab Khan and Shaheen Shah Afridi
Category C (10 players): Abdullah Shafique, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Nawaz, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Nawaz, Naseem Shah, Noman Ali, Sahibzada Farhan, Sajid Khan and Saud Shakeel
Category D (10 players): Ahmed Daniyal, Hussain Talat, Khurram Shahzad, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Salman Mirza, Shan Masood and Sufyan Moqim
Five players – Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha and Shadab Khan- have been promoted to B contract. Eight players – Aamir Jamal, Haseebullah, Kamran Ghulam, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Huraira, Muhammad Irfan Khan and Usman Khan – who were in Category D last season have missed out on contracts.
