Contract row is 'no big deal': PCB official

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Karachi, Jan 27: A senior official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has said that the contract row with players in the World Cup squad would be sorted out this week.

"It is no big deal, the players want certain clarifications and have some reservations but our representative in New Zealand is talking to them and it will not affect the performance of the team on the ongoing tour," the senior PCB official told PTI.

Pakistani players have refused to sign the central contracts which were extended by three months by the board before the squad departed for New Zealand last week.

The existing contracts had expired on December 31, 2014 and as per practice the board is supposed to give out six month or 12-month new contracts.

The official said that the board had taken the decision to give three-month contracts as some players had already announced they would be retiring from one format of the game after the World Cup.

"Plus we didn't have enough time to review performances of all the contracted players and some upcoming players in the domestic season. So we decided to extend the existing contracts by three months as a legal requirement," he explained.

He said that the need to extend the contracts by three months was a necessity since players needed to be covered under certain clauses during the World Cup.

"Their payments, insurance, medical cover, bonuses and other aspects like discipline and safeguarding the PCB's commercial interests were the reasons for extending the contracts by three months," he said.

The official who declined to be named made it clear that players including seniors like captain Misbah-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi, Younis Khan and Muhammad Hafeez all had very good relations with the board and in the past also contracts were drafted taking their views into consideration.

PTI