Michael Slater and Greg Blewett, along with Damien Fleming, Colin Miller and Simon Katich were the big names to miss out as the Australian Cricket Board announced their new list of contracted players. But Mark Waugh kept his contract despite speculation that he may be dropped for the tour of Pakistan in September. ACB chief executive James Sutherland announced that the national selection panel had chosen 25 players to be contracted by the board for the next 12 months. Slater's omission was expected after he was dropped from the Australian side in England last year and he has since struggled at state level with New South Wales.

Blewett has not represented Australia in the past 12 months, but he has been a consistently heavy scorer in domestic competitions for South Australia, and may consider himself unlucky.

Katich, once touted as Mark Waugh's likely successor in the Australian middle-order, made his Test debut in the fourth Test against England last year, but performed poorly for Western Australia last season.

Fleming and Miller are both nearing retirement, and neither had been expected to represent Australia again.

Steve Waugh, who was replaced by Ricky Ponting as national one-day captain for the recent series in South Africa, was also on the list.

Fast bowler Stuart Clark was given his first ACB contract after a good season with NSW, taking 45 wickets at 23.26 in the Sheffield Shield. Queensland's Andy Bichel, Nathan Hauritz and Jimmy Maher, Tasmania's Shane Watson and WA's Brad Williams - who were added to the list of contracted players during the 2001-02 season – all had their contracts renewed.

Under a formula agreed with the Australian Cricketers' Association, the minimum contract offered to the lowest-ranked player is $A110,000 ($US59,850), up $A15,000 from last year.

The highest-ranked player will receive a base retainer of around $A440,000 ($US239,360).

The full list of ACB contracted players for 2002-03 is:

Michael Bevan, Andrew Bichel, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Adam Gilchrist, Jason Gillespie, Ian Harvey, Nathan Hauritz, Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Justin Langer, Brett Lee, Darren Lehmann, Martin Love, Stuart MacGill, Glenn McGrath, Jimmy Maher, Damien Martyn, Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds, Shane Warne, Shane Watson, Mark Waugh, Stephen Waugh, Brad Williams

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