LAHORE -  Former T20 captain Shahid Afridi and spinner Saeed Ajmal failed to get Pakistan Cricket Board’s central contracts announced here on Thursday.

This is the first time in 10 years that Afridi has not been offered a central contract, while Ajmal has been dropped after six years. It has been reliably learnt that the PCB has already decided to give farewell to both the senior cricketers, therefore, their names were not included in the central contract list. Paceman Junaid Khan and batsman Fawad Alam are also noteable absentees from the list.

The central contract list has been dominated by veteran batsmen. The contracts are in four groups, A to D, with the top level seeing the likes of Misbah-ul-Haq, Younus Khan, Azhar Ali, Sarfraz Ahmad, M Hafeez, and Shoaib Malik feature. Yasir Shah is the only bowler on the A-list. On the other hand, the bowlers have dominated the B list which consists of Rahat Ali, Wahab Riaz and M Aamir with only exception of middle order batsman Asad Shafiq.

The C category list is a mixture of young and emerging players which includes top performers of recent series against the West Indies and England. Babar Azam, Imad Wasim and Sami Aslam have made their ways from D category to C while Hasan Ali, Khalid Latif, Sharjeel Khan, M Nawaz, Sohail Khan and Sohail Tanveer were new entrants in the C category.  The category D comprises Anwar Ali, Zulfiqar Babar, M Asghar, Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal. Umar Akmal and Anwar Ali were dropped from category C to D while controversial batsman Ahmad Shehzad was also dropped from category B to D. For his brilliant performances, M Asghar was included in the category D contract, as he was not in the list last year. Sohaib Maqsood and Umar Amin were dropped, having been in category D last year.

The PCB explained the delay in announcing the list, which was originally set for June: "It may be recalled that the Pakistan Cricket Board had extended the July 2015-June 2016 Player Central Contracts by three months.

"Three of the four members on the central contracts committee had only just taken up their new roles and a number of tours were ongoing therefore time was required to assess the performances of players," the board added.

PCB PLAYERS CENTRAL CONTRACTS 2016-17:

Category A: Azhar Ali, M Hafeez, Misbah-ul-Haq, Younus Khan, Shoaib Malik, Sarfraz Ahmed, Yasir Shah.

Category B: Wahab Riaz, Rahat Ali, Asad Shafiq, M Aamir.

Category C: Haris Sohail, M Rizwan, Imran Khan, Shan Masood, M Irfan, Sami Aslam, Babar Azam, Imad Wasim, Hasan Ali, Khalid Latif, Sharjeel Khan, M Nawaz, Sohail Khan, Sohail Tanvir.

Category D: Anwar Ali, Zulfiqar Babar, M Asghar, Ahmed Shehzad, Umar Akmal.