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Australia captain Tim Paine is set to go into the Ashes series without a first-class fixture under his belt but he is set to play club cricket and second XI cricket for Tasmania over the next week before Australia’s intra-squad clash in Brisbane ahead of the Gabba Test.Paine is recovering from neck surgery he had in September and has not played at all yet this summer. His last competitive game was in April.Related

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He was hopeful of playing up to four full matches, including a Shield game, before the first Ashes Test at the Gabba in December.Rain last week washed out any hopes of playing for his club side University of Tasmania. He is now set to play on the first day of their clash with South Hobart Sandy Bay on Saturday, but he won’t take part in Tasmania’s Shield clash against Western Australia, starting on Sunday.He will instead play in Tasmania’s Second XI team in a four-day game against South Australia which is scheduled to begin on Monday. Paine will also have the chance to play in the intra-squad clash in Brisbane starting on December 1.Australia’s chairman of selectors George Bailey was not concerned about Paine’s preparation.”Just get some cricket under his belt, which we’re really confident he’s going to get back this weekend,” Bailey said on Wednesday. “And I think from all reports, surgery has gone really well. He’s feeling really, really confident. I think they’ve actually had to hold him back a little bit in the last couple of weeks to make sure the actual healing process has gone well and now it’s just a matter of actually getting some game time under his belt, so he’s really confident and really excited to be leading the team come the first day at the Gabba.”Paine will turn 37 on the opening day of the Ashes series and told last week that he has not given any consideration to his future beyond this summer.Alex Carey and Josh Inglis have both been named in the Australia A squad on Wednesday but Alex Carey is expected to be the second wicketkeeper in the intra-squad match and the Australia A wicketkeeper, and possibly captain, for the England Lions game starting in December. Inglis is set to play as a batter given he was part of the group that was required to do 14-day quarantine on the way back from the T20 World Cup in the UAE and is likely to head back to Perth Scorchers for the start of the BBL.

Stumps A sturdy display by South Africa’s top order put them in position to level the series against India, ending the third day’s play on 118 for 2, practically halfway through their chase of 240. Fortunes swung from one team to another during the course of a gripping day’s cricket, as India made 266 in their second innings – less than what looked possible when Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane were putting together a century stand, but more than seemed probable when India slid to 184 for 6 and then 228 for 8.South Africa lost Aiden Markram and Keegan Petersen in their chase, but each of the partnerships they have had so far have been substantial, especially in the context of the target. Markram and Dean Elgar took a leaf out of the Pujara-Rahane book and began aggressively, putting on 47 in ten overs. Elgar and Petersen then added 46, while the unbroken Elgar-Rassie van der Dussen stand has yielded 25 runs in 12.4 overs so far.Elgar played his usual bloody-minded innings, wearing blows on the body, shrugging off edges and balls whistling past, and always finding a way to survive. Apart from the opening burst where Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami had a rare period of not landing the ball exactly where they wished, India’s bowlers kept asking questions of the batters; but until stumps, South Africa’s top order weathered them.While the hosts ended the day with the advantage, the morning had brought forth a deluge of runs via Pujara and Rahane. Both men had come into the game with increasing scrutiny about their spots in the XI, and ended up making fifties. They were proactive and on the lookout for runs. Pujara showed his intent early by whacking an on drive to the long-on boundary off Lungi Ngidi in the day’s second over – this, after he had already glanced a four at the start of it. It was the sort of ball which Pujara might ordinarily have just pushed to cover. Three overs later, Rahane rose with the ball as Jansen banged it in short outside off, and cut it beautifully over point for six.Jasprit Bumrah and Marco Jansen exchanged words in a mid-pitch confrontation•AFP via Getty Images

Just when South Africa were looking flat, Kagiso Rabada found ferocious rhythm after the first drinks break. He hit the hard length outside off that has made balls rear up on this pitch, and moved it away just enough to catch Rahane’s outside edge with the batter unable to prevent his hands following the ball. In his next over, Rabada got one to dart back into Pujara at pace, and trapped him lbw.Rabada then gave Rishabh Pant a working over in just two balls, beating him outside off first up and then firing a missile that rose up to throat and had the batter in a complete tangle as he fended with his gloves and saw the ball land short of the slips. Next ball, Pant danced down the track and tried to whack Rabada over cover, but only got an edge through to the keeper. With Rabada in the seventh over of his spell and his bowling clearly a cut above the rest, Pant’s shot selection might not have been the best.India had gone into lunch at 188 for 6, but after that Shardul Thakur came out swinging – and also connecting. There was one top-edged six, but five superbly timed fours as Thakur pushed India’s lead into the 200 territory. After he was caught on the boundary off Marco Jansen, Hanuma Vihari farmed the strike and went for his shots. Even so, he wasn’t always successful in shielding the bowlers, and Bumrah faced down a short-ball barrage from Jansen, in the middle of which there were words exchanged and a mid-pitch confrontation where players had to separate the two men, who were team-mates at Mumbai Indians just three months back.India’s target seemed like a safe one given the nature of the surface, where some balls were spitting up off a length. But a confident Markram put his failures of this series behind him to play an attacking role in the opening stand.Thakur continued to have a fantastic Test when he trapped Markram lbw in an over that had two close calls already. R Ashwin then provided an important breakthrough, getting Peterson lbw. He had van der Dussen in some trouble too, and while KL Rahul rotated his bowlers around – the injured Mohammed Siraj bowled the least – and all of them kept things tight, Elgar and van der Dussen survived till stumps.

Bangladesh crashed and burned in their opening game of the Under-19 World Cup, getting bowled out for 97, as England began their campaign with a seven-wicket win over the defending champions in Basseterre’s Warner Park.Bangladesh were rattled by England’s left-arm seamer Joshua Boyden, who effected four caught-behind dismissals after Bangladesh opted to bat first. He finished with 4 for 16 from his nine overs that also included four maidens.Related

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Boyden, who plays for Lancashire 2nd XI, took the new ball and in the third over of his spell struck with a ball angling across opener Mahfijul Islam as he tried to drive away from his body. Next over, the other Bangladesh opener, Ariful Islam, was sent back in similar fashion, once again pocketed by wicketkeeper Alex Horton.From the opposite end, right-arm seamer James Sales picked off Prantik Nawrose Nabil with another catch to the keeper, and when a direct-hit from William Luxton had wicketkeeper-batter Md Fahim packing for 1, Bangladesh were reeling at 8 for 4.Bangladesh promoted Ashiqur Zaman up the order to up the scoring, but his inexperience with the bat showed when he was out for 9 trying to pull a Thomas Aspinwall ball that got big on him.With England well and truly on top, Bangladesh’s No. 4 Aich Mollah (13) tried to start a rebuilding process alongside Abdullah Al Mamun. But Mollah fell to Fateh Singh’s left-arm spin when his cut behind point went straight to gully.Boyden, returning for a new spell, then brought the wicketkeeper back into play, in the 23rd over, by getting a length ball to nip across left-hander Mamun’s bat, taking a faint edge to Horton. Next over, SM Meherob top-edged a short ball from Aspinwall to Horton for his fifth catch and the score was 51 for 8.Bangladesh captain and bowling allrounder Rakibul Hasan was soon dismissed off the first ball he faed when a full delivery from Boydon angled across him, and the his aggressive-looking drive was edged to Horton.Bangladesh’s final pair, however, dug in to give the team some hope of a triple-digit score. Naimur Rohman made 11 and the No. 11 Ripon Mondol swung his bat around to crack five fours and a six to make 33. Their partnership of 46 runs pushed Bangladesh to 97 for 9 before Rohman pulled right-arm offspinner Tom Prest to a diving James Rew at midwicket.England’s unbeaten duo of William Luxton and James Rew walk back after the win•ICC via Getty

England’s openers were in no hurry to chase the target of 98 down, looking to settle in before opening their arms. In search of wickets, Rakibul rotated his bowling options to find that opening breakthrough, and it came in the ninth over from second-change bowler Mondol when opener George Thomas mistimed a pull to midwicket.Prest, the England captain, then walked in at No. 3 with the score 20 for 1, but he didn’t last long. After taking 15 balls to score four runs, he got tempted to cut one square with a half-tracker from Rakibul, but ended up getting a thick edge to wicketkeeper Mollah. With England at 26 for 2, and Bangladesh lifted following two quick wickets, there was still a chance for the defending champions to make a game of the contest despite the low target.But all those hopes for Bangladesh were dashed by the third-wicket stand between Jacob Bethell and Rew. Despite being in no rush to get his runs, the opener Bethell impressed with his strokes, cracking four fours and two sixes. He made 44 in 63 balls, and held one end up, exactly what England needed at the time. However, he was run out responding to a single from Rew.With England on 91 for 3 and needing only seven more to win, Luxton walked in at No. 5 and played a slog sweep over deep midwicket off his very first ball. Rew then knocked off a single, for his 26th run, to seal England’s win with 149 balls to spare.”That’s probably the perfect start,” Prest said after the game. “For our bowlers to get them out for under 100 was very good. In the end, a good toss to lose.”Boydon was really good doing that for us, good at swinging the ball, especially to left-handers. We fielded very well, we were fizzing around. Fielding has been a big focus of ours.””I think as a batting unit we didn’t do well,” Rakibul said. “We want to come back stronger next game with the batting. We had some good batters at the end and they showed great character. If our main batsmen score some runs, then we can surely come back stronger in the next match. Look, for us, two games remain. We need to win two games to cross the line and we need to play our best cricket.”

Former West Indies spinner Sonny Ramadhin has died aged 92. Details of his passing are to be confirmed.A bowler who could make the ball turn both ways, Ramadhin played 43 Tests between 1950 and 1961 for 158 wickets at 28.98. He was instrumental in West Indies’ first Test win in England, at Lord’s in 1950; West Indies won that game, the second of the series, by 326 runs with Ramadhin bamboozling the batters to take a match haul of 11 for 152.Related

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West Indies would go on to register huge wins in the third and fourth Tests as well, to complete a landmark and wholly unexpected series victory. Ramadhin along with his spin partner Alf Valentine led the wickets charts by a mile. Bowling right-arm offspin and legbreaks with no obvious change in his action, Ramadhin finished the series with three five-wicket hauls and a ten-for, his 26 wickets coming at 23.23.Spin twins Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine•Getty Images

Ramadhin, “a small neat man whose shirt-sleeves were always buttoned at the wrist” to quote ESPNcricinfo’s profile of him, got the call-up for that England tour at 21 after just two first-class games. Both he and Valentine were surprise picks for the series but would go on to bowl a lot – 377.5 and 422.3 (with the next highest being 181) overs respectively. The pair’s exploits on that tour sparked the famous Calypso song “Cricket, Lovely Cricket”.”On behalf of CWI, I want to express our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Sonny Ramadhin, one of the great pioneers of West Indies cricket,” board president Ricky Skerritt said. “Mr Ramadhin made an impact from the moment he first stepped onto the field of World Cricket. Many stories are told of his tremendous feats on the 1950 tour when he combined with Alf Valentine to form cricket’s ‘spin twins’ as West Indies conquered England away from home for the first time.”This iconic tour is part of our rich cricket legacy, which was pioneered by Mr. Ramadhin and others of his generation. His English exploit was celebrated in a famous calypso – and is still remembered more than 70 years later. Today we salute Sonny Ramadhin for his outstanding contribution to West Indies cricket.”

Middlesex wrapped up victory against Glamorgan by an innings and 82 runs inside the first hour of the third day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match in Cardiff.Glamorgan started the day still needing 111 runs to make Middlesex bat again but, having seen the Middlesex tail put on 226 runs in their innings, there would have been a glimmer of hope.Those hopes faded very fast as two wickets fell within the first three overs of the day with Toby Roland-Jones claiming his first five wicket haul of the season.Middlesex finish this match with 22 points to Glamorgan’s three after the visitors put in a near perfect performance on the second and third days of this match.The two Glamorgan not-out batsmen at the start of the day were Sam Northeast and Michael Neser and it needed to be those two who put a real dent in the deficit. That is not what Glamorgan got. Both were dismissed by Roland-Jones within the space of eight balls, Northeast edging to second slip and Neser caught at mid-on.With just nine runs added to the overnight score Glamorgan were eight wickets down with Middlesex still more than a hundred runs in front.It was Tom Helm who finished things off, trapping Timm van der Gugten lbw before bowling Michael Hogan when Glamorgan’s No. 11 had a massive swing at a ball that crashed into his stumps.The performance of the Middlesex bowlers will leave them with some intriguing selection issues going forward. Roland-Jones, Helm, Martin Andersson and Shaheen Shah Afridi were all excellent in this game. With Ethan Bamber and Tim Murtagh waiting in the wings, it will be interesting to see who misses out in the coming matches.For Glamorgan, it will be a case of the team who were on the field in this match finding a way to replicate their performances from the victory over Nottinghamshire in the last round of the County Championship.Peter Handscombe, the Middlesex captain, was pleased with his side’s performance and full of praise for Roland-Jones, who missed four months of the 2021 season with a knee injury.”That’s pretty close to the blueprint that we want to play,” he said. “We have been doing a lot of work on our identity and how we want to go about it as a group. That was very, very impressive.”We missed [Roland-Jones] last year for quite a long period of the season so it is great to see him back, clean bill of health and just bowling beautifully. He didn’t miss, he just came in and to be relentless on his line and length, credit to him, he has obviously done a lot of work to get his body right and then in pre-season he has come out better and stronger for it.”

Bangladesh’s captain Mominul Haque has admitted that his team has been out of sorts ever since the first innings of the Durban Test, which the visitors lost by 220 runs. Bangladesh’s poor form with the bat continued into the second Test as well, as they were bowled out for 80 in the fourth innings in Gqeberha, their second sub-100 score in the series. For the second straight game, Bangladesh capitulated against spin, losing all 10 of their wickets to Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer.”There’s only one explanation: we batted poorly,” Mominul said. “We couldn’t play team-wise. After batting well in the first innings in Durban, we couldn’t repeat it again in the Test series. Batting by session, batting for time, these things went missing. You have to play well in every session. We have to improve a lot. We are not the No. 1 team in the world. But we are still at the same place before the (Mt Maunganui) win.”Related

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Mominul claimed that Bangladesh don’t play spin well, even though it is quite well known that the players are born and bred in spinning tracks. The only difference between the pitches in Bangladesh and those in South Africa during this series was the bounce.”Everyone knows we don’t play spin well, except one or two of us. We have to improve our square-of-the-wicket shots. (Yasir Ali) Rabbi and I shouldn’t have tried to play those shots over the top. It would have been better had we tried to play it square of the wicket. The better option was to play it along the ground.”There is a fundamental difference between wickets here and the sub-continent. In our conditions, one can use sidespin. Here, it doesn’t really work. Here, overspin is useful. Our bowlers are more used to sidespin. One has to go through a lot of technical changes for overspin. There’s also the difference between domestic and international level.”Mominul said that Bangladesh couldn’t afford to play with five bowlers, mainly because they usually want to have seven batters in their line-up at all times.”Do we ever play with five bowlers? It is tough for us to play five bowlers. Our batting gets weakened. We are a lower-ranked team. We are not the No. 1 team in the world. When we can be a No. 4 or 5 ranked team, we can play with five bowlers. I think this is logical.”

A belligerent century from Darren Stevens propelled Kent from 95 for 4 to 418 for 6 at stumps on the opening day of their four-day match against Sri Lanka’s Development XI in Canterbury.Stevens, the veteran allrounder who turned 46 on April 30, thumped 168 off just 142 balls – including 24 fours and five sixes – to lead his side’s recovery. He was superbly supported by George Linde, who reached 107 and shared a 264-run stand with Stevens.With Tawanda Muyeye and Marcus O’Riordan opening the batting, Kent had just nine runs on the board before Muyeye tickled a Yasiru Rodrigo delivery behind to be out for 5 in the fourth over.Joe Denly, returning from a hamstring injury, cut Udith Madushan to the boundary to move off the mark on the ninth ball he faced and he reached 35 before mistiming a lofted drive to Santhush Gunathilake off the bowling of Dhananjaya Lakshan.O’Riordan departed in the first over after lunch when he was trapped lbw by Lakshan, and Jack Leaning followed a short time later, struck on the pads by Madushan.His dismissal brought about the Stevens-Linde union, the pair putting on 50 runs together in 11 overs and swelling their stand to 130 by tea.Stevens raised his 34th first-class hundred for Kent – and 37th overall – from 96 balls after the interval, passing 13,000 first-class runs for the county he joined from his native Leicestershire nearly 18 years ago in the process.Their stand was finally ended when Madushan beat Steven’s attempted cut to send his off stump cartwheeling.Stevens had missed Kent’s drawn County Championship match with Yorkshire last week after struggling to shake off the effects of a pre-season hamstring problem while bowling through the early rounds.”We know what Darren has done over the years, how good he is, but he’s not quite seemed his usual sparky self,” Kent head coach Matt Walker told KentOnline before the first fixture in a six-match touring schedule for the Sri Lanka side, which will take on other counties through May.”I think he’s found it tough these last three weeks, bowling on those wickets, and I think it was the right change to freshen it up and to give Darren a bit of time to get back to where he wants to get to.”He’s not far away at all. Obviously when you leave Darren Stevens out the team, people’s eyes open wide because everyone knows what he’s done over the years.”It is not the first time Stevens has bounced back with an innings of note. In 2019, having been told that Kent would not be renewing his contract, he scored a career-best 237 off 225 balls and took seven wickets – including 5 for 20 in the second innings – against Yorkshire in the penultimate match of the season, prompting a swift re-negotiation of terms.He has another double-century to his name, scoring 205 not out against Lancashire in 2013 when he was named Kent’s best player, bowler and batter of the year.Meanwhile, South African allrounder Linde – who joined Kent on a two-year, multi-format deal in January – reached his ton from 133 deliveries, with 10 fours and two sixes, before he was caught in the cordon trying to reverse-sweep legspinner Ashen Bandara.Debutant Billy Mead and Hamidullah Qadri saw the hosts through to stumps without further loss, closing on 15 not out and 19 not out respectively.

Australian all-rounder Daniel Sams thrashed his maiden Vitality Blast half-century against Sussex Sharks to guide Essex Eagles to their highest-ever total in the tournament and a third win in four games.Sams hammered 71 from just 24 deliveries, including six sixes and as many fours, as Essex racked up 244 for 7 at Chelmsford after being put in to bat.Mohammad Rizwan blazed 66 from 32 to keep the Sharks’ hopes alive before former Essex star Ravi Bopara bludgeoned a valiant 51 from 26.But it was not enough as he perished to Sams in the final over and Sussex fell just short on 233 for 6 – the match aggregate of 477 setting a Blast record.Adam Rossington got the Eagles’ innings off to a brisk start, paddling the wayward Henry Crocombe for two boundaries and dispatching his former Middlesex team-mate Steven Finn back over his head for successive sixes.The second of those blows raised the 50 partnership with Feroze Khushi (34) inside the fifth over – only for Rossington (35) to hole out to deep square leg on the very next delivery.Michael Pepper took up the baton with a bustling 36, finding the fence regularly and sweeping Rashid Khan for six as the Afghanistan spinner’s first over in this year’s Blast disappeared for 17.Rashid recovered to pick up the wicket of Paul Walter, who swung at a straight one and missed – but that heralded the arrival of Sams, who immediately proceeded to savage the Sussex bowling.The Australian’s clean hitting ensured that one of Tymal Mills’ death overs cost 29 and he and Matt Critchley (34) put together a partnership of 51 from just 18 balls, with the last four overs of the innings yielding 76.The visitors’ chances of overhauling Essex’s enormous total largely rested on a lightning start by Rizwan – and the Pakistan star, returning to the side after international duty, did his best to oblige.Although Luke Wright departed early, pulling Ben Allison to midwicket, Rizwan and Ali Orr (38) accumulated a stand of 87 from 31, with the latter slamming Allison for a trio of sixes in one over.Rizwan registered five maximums of his own, including a ruthless swat off Sams that flew out of the ground and, despite pulling up in pain just short of his half-century and limping from then on, he kept Sussex up with the required rate.Aron Nijjar claimed the prized scalp of Rizwan with his second ball, deceiving him with the flight to win a leg-before appeal – but Tom Alsop (45) and Bopara maintained the chase with a partnership of 69 from 31.However, once Critchley had Alsop and Rashid caught on the boundary in successive balls, even Bopara’s heroics were not quite enough to prevent Sussex’s fourth straight defeat.

It was just over a year ago that Tammy Beaumont announced she had “stopped believing in form”. But if there was ever a good time to show – shall we say, “what she’s capable of” – it was now.After a shock omission from England’s T20I squad for the Commonwealth Games, which will also contest the final three-match leg of the multi-format series with South Africa starting on Thursday, Beaumont’s 119 off 107 balls as England won the third and final ODI in Leicester by 109 runs sent a clear message that she’s still at the top of her game.”I was obviously pretty gutted about a week ago when I when I found out but it was just a case of trying to find a way to get myself in the best headspace to play the last couple of games,” Beaumont said. “I guess it is what it is. I hope that in the future I’ll get another go in T20 cricket.”I hope I’ve got a lot more to give for all formats for England but massively wish the girls the best of luck. I think it’s a really exciting team to go in and maybe bring that gold home but yeah, gutted that I won’t be there.”She revealed her philosophy on form during a hot run of it, helping England to victory over India in Bristol last June with a run-a-ball 87 that marked her fourth consecutive fifty in ODIs.Her latest innings led England to their fifth-highest ODI total of 371 for 7 as Emma Lamb, Heather Knight and Sophia Dunkley all contributed half-centuries and Danni Wyatt a 14-ball 33 to trounce a South Africa side which has failed to compete since last month’s rain-hit drawn Test. The victory allowed England to sweep the ODIs 3-0 and take an 8-2 lead in the series overall, meaning South Africa must win all three T20s to draw level.Related

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In fairness, Lisa Keightley, England’s head coach, said in explaining Beaumont’s omission from the 15-strong T20I squad: “In 50-over cricket you can’t match Tammy’s record. I think it speaks for itself. In T20, I think there’s still some room for growth and improvement.”Beaumont has been a mainstay of England’s line-up, including in their triumphant 50-over World Cup campaign in 2017, when she was her team’s top-scorer for the tournament. She has anchored the opening role as a number of partners have come and gone, and has now found a potential long-term ally in newcomer and Player of the Series Emma Lamb, with whom she has shared partnerships of 127 and 149 in the last two ODIs against South Africa.This year in T20Is, however, Beaumont has made just 36 runs in two games, albeit amid limited opportunities, given that they are the only two matches England have played in the format with all attention on their World Cup defence, and that one of those two Ashes games was rained off. Having scored a 65-ball 97 against New Zealand in a home T20I series last September, Beaumont played out-of-position in the middle order at the T20 World Cup in 2020 and has a career strike rate of 108.37 in the format.Now that England’s focus is about to swing back to T20 for a home Commonwealth Games, however, Beaumont’s only opportunity to work on her short game will be the Hundred – another format again – as England prepare to experiment without her in Birmingham.That experiment could involve Danni Wyatt, who opened after replacing Lauren Winfield-Hill mid-World Cup, at the top with Bryony Smith, who played the last of her four games for England in an ODI against West Indies two years ago. Lamb, the fifth-highest run-scorer in this year’s Charlotte Edwards Cup, also missed on on T20 selection, despite amassing 234 runs at 78.00 in the series with South Africa, at a strike rate of 102.63.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Monday’s knock from Beaumont was brilliantly crafted on an excellent batting track in searing heat. She found the boundary regularly, pulling Shabnim Ismail to the rope in front of square off just the fifth ball of the match and cracking Marizanne Kapp through cover in the next over.She advanced to Nonkululeko Mlaba for a stunning drive through extra cover and again to lamp Chloe Tryon over the sightscreen for the only six of her innings. Three more fours in one Ismail over preceded back-to-back sweeps off Mlaba on her way to 19 fours in all.Beaumont brought up her century moments later, pressing a single off Mlaba wide of mid-off, then punching the air and acknowledging the changing room with arms spread wide in triumph and a broad smile on her face before embracing Dunkley. Her ninth century moved her equal third with Charlotte Edwards on the women’s ODI list.She eventually fell skipping down to Mlaba again but failing to connect and spinning round to see Trisha Chetty whipping off the bails. Later, in the field, she thrilled spectators cheering her from beyond deep square leg with a flourish and a bow and she said had banished all thoughts of her Commonwealth Games omission during her innings.”I think it was probably right at the very back of my mind,” Beaumont said. “You don’t score runs thinking about things other than the ball, and one ball at a time. As one of my trusted friends told me a couple of days ago, you’ve got to go one ball at a time if you’re going to get anywhere so no, it wasn’t really front and centre.”

After several days of impasse, a group of Pakistan’s leading players including captain Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Rizwan agreed to sign the PCB’s central contracts – though only after successfully negotiating changes in several clauses.The group signed the contracts nearly a week after receiving them and just before flying out for the tour to Netherlands, after the PCB revised them on the day of departure. But ESPNcricinfo understands the players have signed on the condition that they will return after the Asia Cup in the second week of September to pick up discussions with the board over a couple of other clauses they remain unhappy about.The PCB announced 33 central contracts this season, splitting between white and red-ball players for the first time 2022-23. As per standard practice the PCB handed the players their copies of the contract at the start of the pre-tour camp in Lahore. Unusually, several players across categories didn’t sign immediately, seeking time instead to run the contracts by their advisers and lawyers before doing so. In the past, players have signed and returned the contracts straightaway.Close to a dozen players in lower categories did sign the contracts immediately but a core group of senior players – Babar, Afridi, Rizwan are cross-format certainties, but the group also included Shadab Khan, Fakhar Zaman and Hasan Ali – wanted time to go through the contracts in more detail. These players are believed to have objected to multiple clauses in a contract that the PCB generally makes unilaterally, given there is no players association in Pakistan.The players expressed a significant number of reservations about the contract, from minor ones to those of a broader nature: these range from questions around the NOC process for participation in foreign leagues, to seeking more information about image rights in ICC events and shares from participation fees at ICC events and clauses around signing individual endorsements.That led to a spate of meetings among the players themselves as well as with the board. Zakir Khan, the PCB’s director for international cricket, led talks initially though his inflexibility on the matter led to Faisal Hasnain, the board CEO and Salman Naseer, the COO, taking a more prominent role. Common ground was eventually found on most of the issues, though discussions will continue on the NOC for foreign leagues and ICC-related issues after the Asia Cup.Historically, the PCB hasn’t formally negotiated with players while writing contacts and on their part, players have rarely disputed any aspect of the contracts, beyond ensuring satisfactory annual pay rises. Against that backdrop, and the fact there is no player’s body in the country, the pushback from a group of elite national cricketers, more aware than ever not only of their commercial value but rights as employees could be seen as a marker of sorts in player-board relations. Even until late on Thursday, as Pakistan readied for departure, there was a real chance that the captain, star fast bowler and wicketkeeper-batter – among others – travelled without having signed contracts.It is also significant that throughout the discussions, the monthly retainer amounts and match fees were not among the points of contention. All players will receive match fees of Rs. 838,530 PKR (approx. US$3800) for a Test, Rs. 515,696 PKR for an ODI (approx. US$2300) and PKR 372,075 (approx. US$1700) for a T20I. The retainer for a top Pakistan red-ball contract is PKR 1,050,000 per month (approx. US$4700) and PKR 950,000 (approx. US$4300) for a corresponding white-ball contract.