Karachi:
The Pakistan Cricket Board is thinking of introducing a performance based pay package for the players in the wake of the national team's disastrous performance in the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy in England.
Ironically, although the Board has since last year twice given pay raises to the players in their central contracts and match fees, this has not reflected in their performances.
In the Champions Trophy, Pakistan lost all its three group matches to crash out of the tournament.
A well informed source in the PCB said that even though there was some confusion over the appointment of a interim chairman following the suspension of Zaka Ashraf by the Islamabad High Court, the Board officials are thinking whether a performance based pay package can be introduced for the players or not.
"When the players do well the Board rewards them with bonuses for wins and individual performances. The feeling now is that payment slab system should be according to their performance series wise and tournament-to-tournament basis instead of long-term contracts," the source said.
In the past also the board has discussed performance based pay packages for players.
The source explained that a new thought process was that players who do well should be rewarded accordingly while those who don't perform upto expectations should get a lesser pay package regardless of their seniority.
At present the players who are given central contracts are assured of monthly retainer payments in three categories regardless of whether they are selected to play for Pakistan or not.
Following the poor show in the Champions Trophy calls have increased for the Board to make changes in the team and dump senior players who have not been performing for sometime now, including Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Imran Farhat and Mohammad Hafeez.
According to present pay scales, top category players like Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Hafeez and Saeed Ajmal will make around 1.2 million from the tour to England while those in category B will make around 850,000.
