Malik likely to get central contract

The Pakistan Cricket Board has omitted around five leading players, including former captain Shahid Afridi, from the list of new centrally contracted players for the next six-month term. According to well placed sources in the PCB, the board had finalised the list of players to be awarded central contracts from July to December and it does not include at least six players who were given contracts in the first half of 2011.
“The likes of Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Akhtar are out because they have announced their retirements while players like Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razzaq and Ahmed Shahzad have not got the nod from the selectors this time because of number of issues, mainly inconsistent form and performances,” one source disclosed. The source added that former captain Shoaib Malik could get a central contract if he is cleared by the integrity committee for national selection on August 15.
“The finalised list includes some new names but the major omissions are Razzaq and Kamran because of their performances,” he said. He also confirmed that the board had not followed ICC Task Force’s advise on Pakistan cricket while finalising the list of new contracts. The ICC Task Force had suggested that PCB should only award contracts to 20 players but the board has decided to ignore this recommendation because of its own policies.
Shoaib Malik will know on August 15 whether his international career is over or will be revived. Malik has been told by the PCB to appear before the integrity committee on August 15 along with Danish Kaneria. There has been widespread speculation that Malik has been cleared by the integrity committee after he was able to explain how he spent 90,000 pounds that was in one of his bank accounts by submitting all details of his assets and bank statements to the committee sometime back. But a senior official of the board made it clear that Malik had not been cleared as yet.
“The present position is that the integrity committee has still not given clearance to Malik so he can’t play for Pakistan. He will appear on the 15th before the committee which will then decide what to do,” said PCB Chief Operating Officer Subhan Ahmad.