The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) issued its new central contracts and demoted cricketers Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hardik Pandya and Wriddhiman Saha. Which were cleared by the board’s apex council on Wednesday.
According to BCCI’s four categories
A , whose annual remuneration is Rs 7 crore, while categories A, B and C are valued at Rs 5 crore, Rs 3 crore and Rs 1 crore respectively.
All-format captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah remain intact as A players. But changes were made in category A.
Pujara, Rahane and Ishant Sharma, who was in Grade A, are now in Grade B. After their decline in form saw them lose their places in the home Test series against Sri Lanka.
Group A, which earlier had 10 players, is now reduced to five cricketers with Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and Mohammed Shami.
However, the biggest demotion among all the players was all-rounder Hardik Pandya. The man saw him being demoted from Grade A to C along with senior opener Shikhar Dhawan.
Rahul Dravid has been placed in Group C despite Saha’s public comments on selection matters. And statements of BCCI President Sourav Ganguly and the head coach in violation of the central contract clause.
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Spinner Kuldeep Yadav and pacer Navdeep Saini, who were earlier part of the contract, were dropped entirely from the list. While Suryakumar Yadav has now entered Group C in the list due to playing the required number of games.
Mayank Agarwal was also demoted from Group B to Group C. While pacer Mohammad Siraj is now in Group B for his stellar performances.
Women’s Contract List:
Indian women’s team all-rounder Deepti Sharma and Rajeshwari Gaikwad joined Group A along with Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav for an annual fee of Rs 50 lakh. Veterans Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami are in Group B (Rs 30 lakh).
The trio of Jemima Rodrigues, Shikha Pandey and Punam Raut, who did not make it to the ICC ODI World Cup 2022 squad. She was demoted from Group B to C (Rs 10 lakh).