The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) approved a new salary structure for the national cricketers, with top grade players getting a 63 per cent increment in their monthly salaries, at a board meeting at the BCB headquarters in Mirpur yesterday.

The old contract had expired in December last year and the players will get their outstanding salaries as per the new structure.

The board increased the salary after the players made their demands known over the past few months, citing that even lower-ranked teams earned more than them.

The final list of the players of each grade is yet to be announced. While a preliminary list was submitted to the board, it was not accepted since there were questions regarding the fate of the newer players in the national team.

The board is likely to fix a new mechanism to grade the players. Aside from looking at the existing points system, which focuses more on the number of international games that a player has played, they will also be adding a performance criterion to this system.

"We had a list of players, but there was confusion regarding one or two players. Until now we followed the points system, but that depends on which player plays more matches. But some of the good performers are not there because they haven't played as many games.

“For example, a Mosaddek Hossain or a Mehedi Hasan Miraz, they are not in the rating. We have said yes to the points system, but performance will also be looked into and then we will make the list again. I think around 15 to 18 players will be included in the new contract,” explained Hassan.

When the last contracts were given, five players had been included in the A+ category -- Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah Riyad.

This time around, there is a good chance that Taskin Ahmed, Mehedi Hasan, Kamrul Islam and Mosaddek Hossain will be given national contracts in place of Nasir Hossain, Arafat Sunny and Al-Amin Hossain.

Bangladesh have done very well recently, their tour of Sri Lanka was an especially memorable one, where they won their 100th Test to level the Test series and also secured draws in the ODI and T20I series. To encourage the cricketers, the board is also considering increasing the winning bonus.

On another note, it was decided that the auction for the national team sponsorship would take place on April 29 with a floor price of Tk 60 crore. The current floor price is almost Tk 20 crore more than what the BCB had received two years ago when Robi Axiata Limited were won the rights to sponsor the team.

Hassan will be leaving for Dubai today in order to attend an International Cricket Council (ICC) meeting which will discuss issues relating to the proposed changes to the ICC's constitution and revenue sharing.