PCB has not awarded a Category A contract to any Pakistan player for the 2025-26 season.
Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan were also demoted from Category A to Category B. They were the only 2 players in Category A last season.
Pakistan’s Test captain Shan Masood was also demoted to Category D, who was in Category B last year.
With the addition of 3 more players, the number of centrally contracted players increased from 27 to 30.
Fakhar Zaman, who missed out on a central contract last year for the first time in eight years, is now back in Category B.
It seems the players’ performance did not meet the expectations due to which no player is in Category A.
There have been some promotions as well where Abrar Ahmad, Saim Ayub, Haris Rauf, Shadab Khan, and Salman Ali Agha have all been promoted to Category B.
Sufiyan Muqeem, Hassan Nawaz, and Muhammad Haris, who did not have a central contract last year, have been awarded one this time.

Pakistan Men’s central contracts
for July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026

CATEGORY B
Abrar Ahmad
Babar Azam
Fakhar Zaman
Haris Rauf
Hassan Ali
Muhammad Rizwan
Saim Ayub
Salman Ali Agha
Shadab Khan
Shaheen Shah Afridi

CATEGORY C
Abdullah Shafique
Faheem Ashraf
Hassan Nawaz
Muhammad Haris
Muhammad Nawaz
Naseem Shah
Noman Ali
Sahibzada Farhan
Sajid Khan
Saud Shakeel

CATEGORY D
Abbad Afridi
Ahmad Daniyal
Hussain Talat
Khurram Shehzad
Khushdil Shah
Muhammad Abbas
Muhammad Wasim
Salman Mirza
Shan Masood
Sufiyan Muqeem

The following players missed out on central contracts this time:
Aamer Jamal
Haseebullah
Irfan Khan
Kamran Ghulam
Mir Hamza
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Huraira
Usman Khan