Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma retired from T20 cricket two years ago after winning the ICC T20 World Cup, but major news involving the stars has surfaced right before the tournament’s next iteration.
According to a report by Times Of India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has scrapped their A+ central contract category, and demoted Kohli and Rohit to the Grade B category.
This is said to be due to them only playing the One Day International (ODI) format. On the other hand, Shubman Gill (India’s current Test and ODI skipper), Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja are now reported to occupy the Grade A category.
BCCI’s Fresh Central Contracts List
BCCI’s central contract categories determine how much annual salary (apart from the match fee) a regular national team player is paid. Previously, the Grade A+ category fetched Rs 7 crore a year.
This was followed by the Grade A, B, and C categories which paid Rs 5, 3, and 1 crore, respectively.
This is what BCCI’s fresh central contract division looks like now, as per the said TOI report:
Grade A: Jasprit Bumrah, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja
Grade B: Washington Sundar, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer
Grade C: Axar Patel, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudarshan, Ravi Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad
Women cricketers are also a part of BCCI’s central contracts. Here’s what the latest list reportedly features:
Grade A: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma
Grade B: Renuka Thakur, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Sneh Rana
Grade C: Radha Yadav, Amanjot Kaur, Pratika Rawal, Kranti Gaud, Uma Chhetri, Arundhati Reddy, Shree Charini, Yastika Bhatia, Harleen Deol, Kashvi Gautam, G Kamlini, Vaishnavi Sharma, Tejal Hasbnis
Their annual payments, however, are different from that of their male counterparts.
