The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has revamped and released its central contract for the 2021-12 season. The board has junked the format-specific contracts for players and has made a list of players who are expected to play for England across formats in the next 12-month period.
There are a total of 20 players who have been awarded central contracts and this includes the newcomer such as Ollie Robinson, who made his Test debut in the just-finished summer.
Dawid Malan, who returned to the longest format this summer has also earned the contract and so has Zak Crawley, who was dropped from the side after a string of low scores against New Zealand and India. However, there was no place for Dom Sibley and Haseeb Hameed, who made an encouraging comeback against Indian after a gap of five years in the contract list.
There were serious doubts on Jonny Bairstow’s future in the longest format but he has got the contract as well.
Moeen Ali, who recently announced retirement from the Test format and his spin bowling pattern in the format, Jack Leach, and Adil Rashid, who has been an instrumental part of the England white-ball formats, have also been awarded with the contract.
The injured duo of Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, who are all set to miss a significant part of the next 12 months due to complicated injuries, have also been retained on the list of players to get contracts.
The ECB also issued incremental and pace bowling contracts to seven players in total. The incremental has been given to three players such as Tom Curran, Dom Bess, Liam Livingstone and Chris Jordan while the pace bowling contracts have been awarded to Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton and Olly Stone.
The Managing Director of England’s Men Cricket, Ashley Giles rated the revamped central contract as "the fairest and most transparent way of rewarding players across all formats".
He congratulated all the players who earned the contract while specifically mentioning the trio of Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, and Ollie Robinson, who got the contract for the first time.
England Men's Central Contracts
Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Eoin Morgan, Ollie Pope, Adil Rashid, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood