Kenya awards players central contracts

Cricket Kenya is on the verge of offering its leading players one-year contracts.

The board has agreed terms with the players, Roger Harper, the coach, has given his views and the national selectors are now drawing up a final list of between 18 and 20 names who will be invited to sign the contracts. The selectors also need to divide the players into three categories, based on seniority and ability, which will determine how much they get paid.

"They will be offered one-year deals," Samir Inamdar, the board's chairman, told Cricinfo. "This has been made possible by the money we received from winning the World Cricket League and also from the Nimbus TV deal.

"Those chosen will receive a regular monthly salary as well as appearance fees for ODIs. For four-day Intercontinental Cup games they will get the equivalent fee for three ODIs."

The board has also offered to share a third of prize-money and appearance money with squad players. And people can still be picked from outside those on central contracts, but they will be paid on a match-by-match basis.

A few leading Kenya players have contracts overseas and Inamdar stressed that these could continue subject to the prior agreement of the board. Their central contracts will be suspended for the period they are employed playing cricket elsewhere.

Inamdar said that at the moment the contracts were for one years and the situation would be reviewed after that. Much depends on whether the board is able to attract new sponsors and also how much the board's share of the new ICC media deal with ESPN brings in.