The Indian players' annual contract with the Cricket Board would be finalised and signed before the team departs for South Africa, to play three Tests and five one-day internationals, next month.

"The contracts would be ready [for signing by the players] before the team leaves for South Africa," said BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah said in Mumbai on Monday.

There has been much speculation whether former captain Sourav Ganguly [Images], who has not played in an ODI since September 2005 and in Tests since returning from Pakistan in January this year, would retain his Grade A annual contract worth Rs 50 lakh.

Queried over a report in a cricket portal that some top Indian cricketers are not too happy with the BCCI's deal with a leading global sports goods brand for the team's apparel as it clashed with the brands some players were endorsing, Shah said the players are getting a good share of the spoils and should be happy.

"They are getting a share of the money. Anyway only four or five players may not be satisfied [with the agreement]. We have to look at the broader picture," said Shah, adding that no player has raised the issue so far with the board's bigwigs.

Asked about the stand-off with the International Cricket Council over the BCCI's refusal to sign the Members' Participation Agreement (MPA) for ICC [Images] events to be held from 2007-2015, the board official said the Indian board has already sent a reply to the world governing council.

"We have sent it two or three days ago," he said.

The BCCI is objecting to quite a few clauses dealing with the marketing of the events and has clearly told the ICC that it cannot sign the document in its present form and that it wanted changes to be made in the MPA.

The ICC has threatened the BCCI that the latter would lose the right to host the 2011 World Cup, jointly with Pakistan, Sri Lanka [Images] and Bangladesh, unless it signs the MPA.