Former England captain Michael Vaughan has retained his central contract for the next 12 months.
Broad earns central deal from ECB, Hoggard axed
Former England captain Michael Vaughan has retained his central contract for the next 12 months.
Click
here to send in your view of the decision
Vaughan ended his five-year reign as skipper at the start of August after struggling for form with the bat throughout the summer.
But the England and Wales Cricket Board have decided to keep faith in the 82-Test veteran, a decision that national selector Geoff Miller justified on the grounds of his impressive record against Australia.
Australia defend the Ashes in England next summer and Vaughan now appears integral to his successor Kevin Pietersen's plan to wrest back the urn.
Nottinghamshire seamer Stuart Broad is the only new name among the 12 players awarded year-long deals by the ECB.
The 22-year-old has impressed in both Tests and one-day internationals during the past year and is included in place of Yorkshire's Matthew Hoggard.
The omission of Hoggard, who is sixth on the all-time list of English Test wicket takers with 248 in 67 matches, likely signals the end of his international career.
"With regard to the award of central contracts, I am delighted that Stuart Broad has won an England central contract for the first time," said Miller.
Progress
"Stuart has made rapid progress over the past year and adapted extremely well to the challenges of both Test and one-day international cricket.
"The award of an England central contract to Michael Vaughan reflects the selectors' view that Michael still has a role to play in the England Test squad over the next 12 months.
"As we build toward the Ashes in 2009, we feel that Michael's experience of previous Ashes campaigns and his excellent personal record against Australia will be an important asset to the squad."
There remains no wicketkeeper in the centrally contracted dozen, although both Tim Ambrose and Matt Prior are among seven players to be placed on increment contracts.
Ambrose and Prior are joined by Ravi Bopara, Samit Patel, Owais Shah, Graeme Swann and Luke Wright, all of whom will receive a one-off payment from the ECB on top of the salary they receive from their first-class county.
The increment contracts are in line with principles of summer central contracts which were previously awarded to players at the start of the home season whom the selectors believed would play a meaningful role during the domestic international season.
Non-contracted players will be also be able to earn an increment contract via the introduction of a new points system. Five points will be awarded for a Test appearance and two for a Twenty20 or one-day international appearance with an increment contract being awarded automatically once a player reaches 20 points during the 12-month contract period.
Central contracts: J Anderson, I Bell, S Broad, P Collingwood, A Cook, A Flintoff, S Harmison, M Panesar, K Pietersen, R Sidebottom, A Strauss and M Vaughan*
Increment contracts: T Ambrose, R Bopara, S Patel, M Prior, O Shah, G Swann and L Wright
*
Central contracts run from October 1 2008 to September 30 2009 and are awarded in three different salary bands which are not disclosed publicly
