India’s Test and ODI captain Rohit Sharma and batting talisman Virat Kohli retained their place in the top category, while the out-of-favour duo of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan returned to the fold in lower brackets in a 34-strong list of centrally contracted players released by the BCCI on Monday. The A grade, which commands an annual retainership fee of Rs seven crore, also features Ravindra Jadeja and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah much like the last few years.
India’s Champions Trophy hero Iyer has been the notable comeback in the list, inducted in group B which comes with an annual remuneration of Rs three crore.
Iyer was dropped last season for allegedly ignoring domestic cricket for IPL. Wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan. dropped for the same reason, also made a comeback in category C, which is worth Rs one crore annually.
Rishabh Pant, who was demoted to group B during the 2023-24 season as he didn’t play due to his recovery from a life-threatening accident, is back in A category in place of the retired Ravichandran Ashwin. Category A comes with a retainership of Rs five crore annually.
Category C features the maximum number of players, 19 in all, with five new entrants in Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Abhishek Sharma and Nitish Kumar Reddy and Akash Deep, who earlier had a fast bowling contract.
The only notable name missing in the list is Mumbai all-rounder Shardul Thakur, who last played for India in the 2023 ODI World Cup game against Bangladesh in Pune.
Fast bowler Avesh Khan, keeper-batters Kona Bharat and Jitesh Sharma have also been excluded from the list.
BCCI central contracts list:
Grade A : Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A: Mohammad Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Md. Shami, Rishabh Pant.
Grade B: Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer.
Grade C: Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakaravarthy, Harshit Rana.
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