Ollie Robinson rewarded with England central contract after breakout summer

Ollie Robinson capped his breakout summer by receiving his first England central contract in a revamped system.

Robinson, Jack Leach and Dawid Malan were the new names on the full contract list, while Liam Livingstone received his first increment deal.

Dom Sibley lost his central contract, having been dropped two Tests into the recent series against India, however Haseeb Hameed – who replaced him – is also not awarded a contract.

Zak Crawley, another to be dropped from the Test side, keeps his contract, as does Ollie Pope, who experienced an awkward year.

In 2020 England awarded 12 Test and 12 white-ball contracts to 19 players (five received both). This year, the contracts have been revamped and take the three formats out of the equation, simply naming the 20 players to receive a Central Contract.

Ashley Giles, the managing director of Men’s Cricket (who decides the contracts with head coach Chris Silverwood) said: “I believe this is the fairest and most transparent way of rewarding players across all formats.”

The ECB — rather than the counties — pay centrally-contacted players an annual salary that is determined by each player’s involvement in the three formats.

In addition, as last year, the ECB have handed out four increment deals and three pace bowling development contracts, which top up the player’s county deal and give the national team some control over workloads.

The pace deals went to the same three bowlers — Craig Overton, Saqib Mahmood and Olly Stone — as last year.

Tom Curran is relegated from the main list to an Increment Contract, while Dom Bess and Chris Jordan both kept their Increments. Livingstone was added to that list after a summer in which he cemented his place in England’s T20 side.

Malan is upgraded from the increment list having broken into the Test side this year and become a mainstay of the T20 squad as the ICC’s top-ranked batter in the format.

Leach also receives a promotion, which is a show of faith in him after a fine tour of Asia earlier this year and Moeen Ali’s retirement from Test cricket. Moeen still makes the list on the basis of his value in white-ball cricket.

Sam Billings, who has been in squads in all three formats this year, and David Willey are among those who can consider themselves unlucky to miss out on a contract.

The ECB Board – minus the Chair Ian Watmore, who left the governing body yesterday – will meet tonight to give official sign-off on the Ashes. A squad for the series is set to be named in the coming days.

Central contracts: Root, Morgan, Anderson, Archer, Bairstow, Broad, Burns, Buttler, Crawley, S Curran, Leach, Malan, Moeen, Pope, Rashid, Robinson, Roy, Stokes, Woakes, Wood.

Increment contracts: Bess, T Curran, Jordan, Livingstone.

Pace contracts: Mahmood, Overton, Stone.

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