PCB offers 27 players retainership contracts

Asim Kamal and Taufeeq Umar are among the 27 players who have been offered retainership contracts for the period from July 2007 to June 2008. The players have been offered a retainership fee of Rs 40,000 per month.

The list that was prepared by the board in consultation with the national selectors includes players on the fringe of national selection, several potential future players, and selectorial recommendations.

Earlier this month, the Pakistan board had awarded central contracts to 20 of their leading players with Inzamam-ul-Haq the most notable omission from the list. Pakistan players had been without contracts since the World Cup, when the board suspended them in the aftermath of a poor display in the Caribbean.

Naved-ul-Hasan, who missed out on a central contract as well as being overlooked for the Twenty20 World Championship, has once again found himself out of favour and missed out on a retainer.

List of players: Taufeeq Umar, Najaf Shah, Abdul Rehman, Fawad Alam, Naveed Latif, Zulqarnain Haider, Mohammad Irshad, Abdul Rauf, Khurram Manzoor, Khalid Latif, Adnan Raza, Sohail Tanvir, Afaq Raheem, Junaid Zia, Anwar Ali, Tahir Khan, Sarfraz Ahmed, Asim Kamal, Nasir Jamshed, Yasir Ali, Shahid Yousaf, Mansoor Amjad, Shoaib Khan, Zohaib Khan, Uzair ul Haq, Atif Maqbool, Bazid Khan