Cricket West Indies have introduced separate central contracts for red and white-ball cricket, plus a third ‘all-format’ contract.

Six players have been handed red-ball contracts and five white-ball contracts, while just five are now contracted across all formats – Jason Holder, Shannon Gabriel, Shai Hope, Alzarri Joseph and Devendra Bishoo.

The new system was announced after a number of players opted out of the national team in favour of T20 franchise tournaments. Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell and Darren Bravo chose to miss the World Cup Qualifiers in Zimbabwe in order to play in the Pakistan Super League.

CWI chief executive Johnny Grave said: “The new retainer contracts aim to incentivise our players to play cricket for the Windies and be contracted to CWI.

“All the new contracts offer increased remuneration to our Windies men’s team as well as enhanced medical and insurance policies. All future contracts for all of our professional cricketers will start on the same date, July 1, which will become the start of our cricketing year.”