Player differences stall Indian central contracts

If India's cricketers don't have central contracts yet, they have only themselves to blame. The abrupt cancellation of the meeting of the screening committee formed to allot central contracts to the Indian players was brought about not by the prevarication of the board, but by a lack of consensus among the players.

The matter has now been postponed to allow a group of the players who have expressed their reservations about the structure of the contract to come up with their own suggestions. It is understood that a group of players argued against the proposed grading system, which was to be determined by the screening committee on merit. They felt the seniority (number of Tests and one-dayers played) rather than a subjective decision by the committee should be the sole criterion.

It is understood that the objections cropped up at the last moment, after the draft contracts were handed out to the players at the Indian team's preparatory camp in Chennai. Some time back Ratnakar Shetty, the joint secretary of the BCCI, met the players at the conditioning camp in Bangalore to explain the contract, which had been finalised in consultation with a few senior players, including Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble.

However, some of the other players felt that the subjective element in the structure could lead to disharmony, and that it would be better to decide the gradings by the number of matches played. The flip side of this is that a senior player would be guaranteed a higher-grade contract, irrespective of his true worth to the team. For example, if this contract had been enforced ten years ago, Sachin Tendulkar, already India's best player, would have received a B-contract behind some lesser lights on account of the number of matches he had then played. Interestingly, the suggestion that seniority should be the main criterion came from a group of younger players.

Some players were also unhappy about a proposed clause under which reserves would get only 50% of the match fee paid to the playing XI. In the existing system, they receive 90%, but without the security blanket of an annual retainer.

The end result is that the players will now have to wait before they can reap the rewards of a central contract, something Kumble, the player in the forefront of negotiations in this issue, recently called "The best thing to happen to Indian cricket".