Cricket · published category band
Shahid Afridi’s pay, and the sport that publishes bands, not salaries
Cricket documents pay in a way no other sport on this site does: the board publishes the salary band for each draft category and announces which category each player was drafted into. Shahid Afridi was a platinum pick: the top category, and in recent seasons that band has run from $170,000 to $300,000 for a season. That is a documented range rather than a guess, and it is the honest shape of the answer.
- Draft category, and the band the board publishes for it
- Platinum
The top category in the Pakistan Super League draft. The board publishes the band for each category rather than the amount for each player: in recent seasons the platinum band has run from $170,000 to $300,000 a season.
Why a band is a better answer than a number
A draft with published categories produces exactly two public facts per player: the category, and the band attached to it. Both come from the board. Neither is a leak, an estimate or a reconstruction. What the board does not publish is where inside the band an individual contract landed, which is a matter between the franchise and the player.
So the documented answer is a range. Sites that print a single figure for a player in a banded league have either picked the middle of the band and rounded, or taken the top of the band as though every player earned the maximum. Both look more precise than the source allows.
This page prints the band and names the category. A reader who wants the midpoint can take it themselves, knowing it is their arithmetic rather than the board’s.
| Category | Published band per season | Picks permitted per franchise |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | $170,000 – $300,000 | Up to three |
| Diamond | Up to $85,000 | Up to three |
| Gold | $50,000 | Squad remainder |
The bands are revised between seasons, so a figure quoted without a season attached is unanchored. The band above is the one published for a recent season and is given as an illustration of the mechanism.
National contracts work the same way
A national board that centrally contracts its players normally publishes the categories, A, B, C and so on: with a retainer attached to each, and announces which players sit in which category for the year. Again, the documented facts are the category and the band, and again the individual amount is private.
Match fees, tour allowances and win bonuses sit in the same document in most boards’ arrangements. Where those are published, they are documented; where a board announces only the categories, they are not.
What sits outside every published band
Franchise leagues in other countries, endorsement contracts, appearance fees, broadcasting work and business interests are all private. For a player whose career spanned the arrival of the franchise era, those are likely to be the larger part of career income, and not one of them is on a public register.
That gap is the reason no net worth figure appears here. Published bands cover one slice of a modern cricketer’s earnings; the rest is unpublished, and adding a guess to a documented band does not produce a documented total. Where earnings figures come from covers which registers reach how far.
Questions readers send
How much was Shahid Afridi paid in the Pakistan Super League?
He was drafted in the platinum category, the top band. The board publishes the band rather than the individual contract: in recent seasons platinum has run from $170,000 to $300,000 for a season.
Why give a range instead of a figure?
Because the range is what is published. The board announces the category bands and which category each player is in; where inside the band a contract landed is private.
Does the band include everything he earned?
No. It covers one league. Other franchise leagues, endorsements, appearance fees and business interests are private and are not published by anyone.
Why must a season be attached to any band figure?
Because the bands are revised between seasons. A platinum figure quoted without a year is unanchored: it may belong to a scale the board has since replaced. The bands shown here are the ones published for a recent season, given as an illustration of the mechanism rather than as the amount in force in the year a reader happens to be asking about.
Where these figures are published
- 01 Pakistan Cricket Board, The published salary band for each draft category, and which category each player was drafted into Player draft announcements and the published category structure for the relevant season
- 02 National cricket board central-contract announcements, The category structure and retainer band for centrally contracted players Annual central-contract announcements for the relevant years