Imrul, Soumya among six to miss out on central contracts

The Bangladesh Cricket Board announced today that the national central contracts list has been whittled down from 16 contracted players in the previous year to 13 for 2018. As three of those players will be rookies, the names of whom are yet to be settled upon, it means that six players previously centrally contracted will miss out on 2018's list.

10 national players to get contracts have been named today, following the board meeting held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium this evening.

They are: Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah Riyad, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Taijul Islam, Mominul Haque, Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain and Mehedi Hasan Miraz.

"10 names have been finalised among the national players and we also determined that three rookies be included," said BCB president Nazmul Hassan after the meeting. "The names of the rookies have not been finalised, but they will be submitted in due time. So there will be a 13-player contract list."

The players to miss out on the contracts are Soumya Sarkar, Mosaddek Hossain, Kamrul Islam Rabbi, Imrul Kayes, Taskin Ahmed and Sabbir Rahman. Among these six, Sabbir's name was already known as he is currently serving a six-month domestic ban for assaulting a young fan during a National Cricket League game in November last year. On the first day of 2018, Hassan had said that the ban precluded Sabbir from consideration for the central contracts.

About the exclusion of the others, BCB media committee chairman Jalal Yunus said: "We have reduced the number of contracted players because the cricket operations and selectors think that their performances have not been up to a level that makes a compelling case for them to be included in the contracts."