BCCI has announced its central contracts for Indian players with few changes. The skipper Virat Kohli, white-ball vice-captain Rohit Sharma and India’s leading pacer Jasprit Bumrah retained their top bracket worth Rs 7 crore each. All-rounder Hardik Pandya got the promotion as he moved into Grade A. A total of 28 cricketers were awarded central contracts in four categories.
Few players have been demoted like Kuldeep Yadav who has been inconsistent in the squad and lost his form. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has also been demoted to Grade B due to the lack of cricket he played. Wrist spinner Yuzvendra Chahal is the next name who has also been demoted from Grade B to C.
Kedar Jadhav and Manish Pandey have been dropped from the central contract. They were not the part of Indian squad since COVID and ideally, don’t fit in the current Indian side. Shubhman Gill and Mohammed Siraj earned a maiden central contract after making their debut in Australia.
Here’s BCCI’s Annual Retainership for 2020-21
Grade A+: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah
Grade A: Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammad Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya
Grade B: Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal
Grade C: Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammad Siraj
