New Zealand Cricket has announced its 20 BLACKCAPS contracts for the 2025/26 contractual year and top order batter WILL YOUNG is the only Central Stag to have retained his spot.

Despite having played a leading role alongside Young in the BLACKCAPS' historic Test whitewash in India at the start of last season, accomplished left-arm spinner AJAZ PATEL has meanwhile lost his BLACKCAPS contract - with the team's schedule over the next 12 months featuring few such Test opportunities for a specialist Test spinner.

Test star Ajaz Patel | PHOTOSPORT

It's the second time in his career that Patel has been omitted from the list in such circumstances, having won back his contract only last season. The formula the contract selectors use has a 1.5 weighting for Test players, and one apiece for the ODI and T20 formats.

Meanwhile, there is also disappointing news for Stags allrounder JOSH CLARKSON. Clarkson gained his first NZC contract last season, elevated after Finn Allen and Devon Conway declined their NZC contract offers.

Josh Clarkson | PHOTOSPORT

The big-hitter and canny medium pacer now makes way for new faces despite impressive showings for New Zealand A in Bangladesh, last month.

Going from three contracted BLACKCAPS to just one is likely to have implications for the Central Stags contracted group for the coming season, which is yet to be announced.

Major Associations are allowed to contract 16 male players per season so, when uncontracted BLACKCAPS return to the Domestic contracting environment, inevitably it means other players will miss out on the Major Association's own contract offers, that provide regular income through retainers, training and support services over the Domestic season. 

Will Young | PHOTOSPORT

 

 

Conversely, the more contracted players a Major Association has on the NZC 'centralised' contract list, the greater their overall pool of contracted players for the season.

Canterbury leads this season's NZC tally with eight contracted players, closely followed by Wellington's six contracted BLACKCAPS.

Northern Districts dominated the contracted list for many seasons, but now also has just one contracted BLACKCAP in spinner Mitch Santner.

Other stars like Kane Williamson and Tim Seifert (ND), Conway (Wellington) and Allen and Lockie Ferguson (Auckland) may remain available on casual contracts for the BLACKCAPS and their Major Association teams, with those discussions ongoing, said NZC.

 

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This season's NZC contracts list sees a quartet of young players elevated to their first BLACKCAPS contract, with the four all having already represented the BLACKCAPS in white-ball cricket formats only:

• 21-year-old Wellington left-arm seam-bowling allrounder Muhammad ("Mo") Abbas
• 22-year-old Auckland Aces leg-spinner Adithya ("Adi") Ashok
• 22-year-old Canterbury swing bowling allrounder Zak Foulkes
• 24-year-old Canterbury wicketkeeper-batter Mitch Hay

The selection process was managed by NZC Chief High Performance Officer Bryan Stronach and overseen by NZC, and involved BLACKCAPS head coach Gary Stead, selector Sam Wells, assistant coaches Jacob Oram and Luke Ronchi, and Performance Manager Mike Sandle.

A statistical review of Domestic and International performances across Test, ODI, and T20i formats informed the rankings, with the final 20 players selected based on past performances; the 2025/26 schedule; and their likelihood of representing New Zealand.

Uncontracted players can still be selected to play for the BLACKCAPS at any time.

Alongside the Central Stags' Patel and Clarkson, Canterbury's star leg-spinner Ish Sodhi and the now-retired Tim Southee are the other players from the 2024/25 contracted list to meanwhile drop off this summer's NZC list. 

 

NZC CONTRACTED PLAYERS

2025/26

 

Central Districts (1)

Will Young

Northern Districts (1)

Mitch Santner

Auckland (2)

Adi Ashok - new

Mark Chapman

Wellington (6)

Michael Bracewell

Tom Blundell

Mo Abbas - new

Rachin Ravindra

Ben Sears

Nathan Smith

Canterbury (8)

Zak Foulkes - new

Mitch Hay - new

Matt Henry

Kyle Jamieson

Tom Latham

Daryl Mitchell

Henry Nicholls

Will O'Rourke

Otago (2)

Jacob Duffy

Glenn Phillips

 

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Article added: Tuesday 3 June 2025