PCB offers central contracts to 19 women players

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board has offered central contracts to 19 women players who were part of the gold-medal-winning national squad in the inaugural women's cricket tournament at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China last November.
Although the monthly salaries offered in the central contracts to the women cricketers are much less compared to their male counterparts, a PCB official said it was just the start.
"We feel the women cricketers needed some sort of encouragement and compensation for their hard work," PCB spokesman Nadeem Sarwar said.
He pointed out that women's cricket over the years has transformed into a professional sport, which requires full time commitment.
"With professionalism, there arises a need for compensation. Over the past couple of years, Pakistan women's cricket team has shown a gradual but positive progress," he added.
Sarwar said the contracts would be from January to December 2011 and were divided into four categories.
Apart from fetching the Asian Games gold medal, Pakistan women's cricket team also won a four-nation tournament in Sri Lanka last month.
Two years back, they had also qualified for the women's ICC World Cup in Australia.
Pakistan captain Sana Mir said the decision to award central contracts was a positive thing for women's cricket in the nation.
"The board has been supporting women's cricket a lot and these central contracts show they recognise the hard work and commitment of the national team," she said.
Recently, the PCB had also announced a number of domestic events for the women.
The women players in the top category will get a retainer of 50,000 rupees compared to 250,000 rupees for the top men players.
The list of players who have got the central contracts include:
Category A: Sana Mir, Javeria Khan, Nain Abidi, Bismah Maroof, Batool Fatima.
Category B: Nida Dar, Asmavia Iqbal, Qanita Jalil, Marina Iqbal, Sania Khan.
Category C: Masooma Junaid, Sadia Yousaf, Rabiya Shah, Sana Gulzar, Sidra Ameen.
Retainership: Kainat Imtiaz, Nahida Khan, Namra Imran, Faryal Awan, Areeb Shamaim.