Shaheen Shah Afridi is on left and Haris Rauf on right. (FILE photo)
Pakistan’s premium fast bowlers Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf have been demoted in rank in their Pakistan central contracts. The former who was an A-category player before has been pushed down to B while the latter has been pushed to C from B.
Earlier in the year Afridi was alleged of non-cooperative attitude in the T20 World Cup 2024 co-hosted by the West Indies and the USA where The Men in Green were out of the competition in the group stage.
Afridi was dropped after the first Test against Bangladesh and the first Test against England. Shaheen was also made the captain after the 2023 ODI World Cup however, was stripped of it after one series loss against New Zealand.
Haris Rauf on the other hand has refused to play the series Test against Australia in December 2023 when his central contract was terminated initially and was restored later. He later was also given NOC to play Big Bash League.
Other highlights
The talisman Babar Azam and wicket-keeper Mohammed Rizwan continue to remain A category players and Test skipper Shan Masood was promoted from D to B.
Category A: Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan
Category B: Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood
Category C: Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Saud Shakeel and Shadab Khan
Category D: Aamir Jamal, Haseebullah, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Hurraira, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr and Usman Khan
Who missed out?
Notebaly Fakhar Zaman and Imam-ul-Haq who have been regulars recently and were B category players are completely omitted from the Central Contracts.
Mohammad Nawaz, Hasan Ali, Shahnawaz Dahani, Faheem Ashraf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Ihsanullah, Mohammad Haris, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Usama Mir and Zaman Khan who were D contracted players last year are now out of contracts.
