BCCI joint secretary Ratnakar Shetty told rediff.com that copies of the draft of the much-awaited contracts were sent to Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble during India's TVS Cup tri-series match against Australia in Mumbai.

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"The players' lawyer will evaluate the clauses and get back to the board soon," he said. "We are on target for implementing the contracts before the team leaves for Australia."

BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya had set October 1, 2003, as the deadline to implement the contracts, but with the players being pre-occupied with the Test series against New Zealand and the tri-series, it got delayed.

The BCCI has excluded from the draft the clause under which players would lose a large amount of their match fees if they lost to a lowly placed team.

According to the original draft, players stood to gain a bonus for victory, but lose 50 per cent of their match fees in case of a defeat.

The bonus clause for beating higher-ranked teams remains in place.

Once the players send their reply, the selectors, chief coach, and an official appointed by the BCCI will draw up a pool of 20 players who will be graded according to their performance and experience. This select group will be given an annual retainer fee. The three proposed grades are: Rs 60 lakh [approximately US $132,450] (Grade A); Rs 30 lakh [$66,225] (Grade B); Rs 15 lakh [$33,112] (Grade C).

Currently a player takes home Rs 270,000 [$5960] for a Test match and Rs 221,000 [$4875] for a Limited Overs International, which is inclusive of match fees and logo money from sponsorship.

The senior players, who have been discussing this matter of graded payments with the board, had sought clarifications on the BCCI's gross earnings and its decision to earmark 26 per cent of those earnings for the players.

According to the BCCI's decision, half of this 26 per cent will be given to the national cricket team; first-class cricketers will get 10.4 per cent while junior cricketers will get the remaining 2.6 per cent.

The BCCI had not included the interest generated on its gross earnings, nor had it specified any amount when discussing this '26 per cent'.

"There is no link between the 26 per cent and the players contracts," Professor Shetty clarified. "The players will be given a retainership and it has no relationship with the percentage of the board's earnings."

This, of course, does not explain why, if there was no such link with the player contracts, BCCI president Dalmiya was tomtoming the figure at every discussion with the media on the player contracts.