The Pakistan Cricket Board, in a bizarre move, has extracted funds from the domestic cricket periphery to give a massive hike in the funds allotted for centrally contracted international cricketers for the 2024-25 fiscal year. As per reports from PTI, the internationally contracted players will be receiving a hike of 37 per cent. And the number of players in the men's central contract has been increased from 25 to 30. The PTI report says the PCB’s Board of Governors has approved this after the new annual budget was disclosed, which is PKR 1,173.49 million (approximately INR 35.41 crore). With this, the salary count for the domestic players has suffered a massive hit. A PTI source close to the proceeding unanimously informed that their salary has been reduced by a massive 34 per cent. The source said, “The source said that the budget for the contracts awarded to domestic players had been reduced by nearly 34 per cent." For the Pakistani female cricketers, the budget allotted for them has seen a negligible hike of 4 per cent, now PKR 37.2 million (INR 1.116 crore). The centrally contracted cricketers in for the girls have been increased from 16 to 24. Read also: Shubman Gill's mental shift behind England Test heroics Why is Pakistan's move furrowing eyebrows? This squeezing salaries from domestic cricketers to pay the international cricketers primarily points out PCB's ignorance towards having a strong base. Not only that, after awful performances in major ICC tournaments like the 2024 T20 World cup, Champions Tropy 2025 and even in the 2-0 whitewash against Bangladesh, there are certain questions on the board's move towards the hike. Well, apart from the players, the board has PKR 93.6 million (Rs 2.808 crore) for the renovation and maintenance of fields. This included 12 first class venues, looking after pitch preparations, maintenance, and offering top-class facilities to the guests. Before the Champions Trophy, ICC allotted a huge sum to the board to renovate three major stadiums of the country- Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, National Stadium in Karachi, and Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. For that, PCB has kept aside PKR 6 billion in addition to the PKR 18 billion allocated in the previous fiscal year.