ECB announces central contracts for 2020-21 season; Jonny Bairstow misses out on Test contract

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced the central contracts for red-ball and white-ball formats for the 2020-21 season. Zak Crawley, Dom Sibley and Ollie Pope are all among the 12 cricketers in the red-ball contract for the upcoming season. Meanwhile, a top name missing out is Jonny Bairstow who is only the part of the white-ball central contract.

Bairstow lost his place from the Test side following a slump in form after the Ashes last year and played only one Test against South Africa in the previous season. The new entrants, Crawley and Sibley, are the regular openers for England now while Pope has been consistently doing well at number six. Joe Denly is the cricketer who has missed out on both contracts.

The current contracts will be applicable from October 1, 2020 for a 12-month period and ECB is busy finalising the remuneration for the players. However, as per Mirror, players with Test deals were paid £650,000 (INR 6.14 crore) and white-ball around £275,000 (INR 2.6 crore) while the ones with both contracts earned £925,000 (INR 8.74 crore) in the previous season.

Incremental contracts of ECB

The ECB has also decided to include the likes of Dom Bess, Chris Jordan, Dawid Malan and Jack Leach in the increamental contracts. All the four players in this contract have been a part of England side regularly in one of the Tests and T20I formats. While Bess recently made a comeback, Leach was the preferred spinner until South Africa before injury ruled him out.

Chris Jordan and Dawid Malan are top T20 players of the side and played all the T20I matches earlier in the international summer.  Tom Curran was part of the increamental contract last season and has progressed to white-ball contract this year. Accordingly, after analysing the performances of these players, they will also be progressed to respective contracts next year.

Here are more details:

Test Central Contracts

James Anderson (Lancashire), Jofra Archer (Sussex), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Rory Burns (Surrey), Jos Buttler (Lancashire), Zak Crawley (Kent), Sam Curran (Surrey), Ollie Pope (Surrey), Joe Root (Yorkshire), Dom Sibley (Warwickshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire).

White Ball Central Contracts

Moeen Ali (Worcestershire), Jofra Archer (Sussex), Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire), Jos Buttler (Lancashire), Tom Curran (Surrey), Eoin Morgan (Middlesex), Adil Rashid (Yorkshire), Joe Root (Yorkshire), Jason Roy (Surrey), Ben Stokes (Durham), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire), Mark Wood (Durham).

Increment Contracts

Dom Bess (Somerset), Chris Jordan (Sussex), Dawid Malan (Yorkshire), Jack Leach (Somerset).

Pace Bowling Development Contracts

Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire), Craig Overton (Somerset), Olly Stone (Warwickshire).