Karachi: Pakistan cricketers, who are currently touring New Zealand, have refused to sign the three-month extended contract that is given to them by the national cricket board (PCB).
According to the 'Express' newspaper, the national team players, after a meeting in New Zealand, declined to sign the extended contracts and informed the touring manager Naved Akram Cheema that they would first speak with the Chairman of the PCB, Shaharyar Khan before deciding on what to do.
"The players led by captain Misbah-ul-Haq and other seniors are not happy with the three-month extended contracts because they believe it deprives them of pay increases for a three-month period," a source was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
The report claimed that the board had given the three-month contracts without consulting the players.
The existing contract expired on December 31, 2014 but instead of giving the players a fresh long-term contract, as is the usual practice, the PCB announced that the existing contracts had been extended for three more months.
Only Sohail Khan and Haris Sohail, who were selected in the World Cup squad, were added to the central contracts list while the board neither dropped any player nor increased the monthly retainers.
The report said that the players were of the view that the existing contracts were made during the tenure of former PCB chairman Najam Sethi and even then they had conveyed their reservations to the board about certain clauses in their contracts.
"Now the players want the board to give them one-year contract for 2015, backdated from January 1 with increased pay scales and revised clauses," the report said.
The dispute over the signing of the contracts has come just before the start of the ICC Cricket World Cup, scheduled to start from February 14, to be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
The report also said some players were not comfortable with certain clauses in their contracts pertaining to commercial endorsements and individual sponsorships.
Recently PCB had issued show cause notices to Shahid Afridi and some other players for taking part in a commercial without the Board's permission.
