BCCI has announced its annual central contract. In this, captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli along with fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah have been kept in the top grade in A+. At the same time, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, who were dropped from the Test team, have suffered. Rahane and Pujara were demoted from Grade A to Grade B in the list of fresh central contracts. Both these players were also dropped from the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka.
However, the biggest drop was in the grade of injury-hit all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who has been directly demoted from Grade A to Grade C in the list. Apart from this, veteran wicket-keeper batsman Wriddhiman Saha has been demoted from Grade B to C in the BCCI central contract after being dropped from the Test team. But despite this, he will get one crore rupees in a year.
Based on the recommendation made by the All India Senior Selection Committee, the Apex Council of BCCI on Wednesday released the list of retentions to the players, news agency PTI reported. There are four categories of BCCI grades in which players in ‘A+’ are given Rs 7 crore while those in A, B and C categories are given Rs 5 crore, Rs 3 crore and Rs 1 crore respectively.
This central contract of players is from October 1, 2021 to September 2022. As per the central contract, there is no change in the A+ grade while five out of the 10 players in the B grade have been dropped. At the same time, grade B has been increased. The number of players in this grade has been increased from 5 to seven. At the same time, two more players were included in the C grade and their number has increased to 12.
BCCI’s new contract list:-
Grade A+: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah. Grade B: Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant.
Grade C: Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammad Siraj , Ishant Sharma.
Grade D: Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mayank Agarwal, Surya Kumar Yadav, Wriddhiman Saha.
