The BCCI, on Sunday (March 26), announced the annual player retainership for Team India for the 2022-23 season. The retainership period is from October 2022 to September 2023.
As usual, the players have been divided into four grades – Grade A+, Grade A, Grade B, Grade C. Players in A+ Grade earn a contract of 7 crore while those in Grade A, B and C earn 5 crore, 3 crore and 1 crore respectively. Ravindra Jadeja has entered the top grade after a stunning display for Team India across formats.
Last year, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah were in Grade A +. And while the trio has retained their spots in the top grade, Jadeja has joined them too. The allrounder is now an indispensable part of the team across formats. He has performed consistently with both bat and ball and has been duly rewarded with the promotion.
Last year, Jadeja had a Grade A contract. Talking about Grade A, Hardik Pandya has earned a promotion after his fine performances for the team in limited-overs format. Pandya has also been appointed as the vice-captain of the team in limited-overs format. He was in Grade C in the last BCCI Central Contract.
Axar Patel has also been promoted from Grade B to Grade A while KL Rahul has been demoted from Grade A to Grade B. Talking about new entries, KS Bharat, Arshdeep Singh and Sanju Samson have been handed central contracts by the BCCI and they are in Grade C.
At the same time, there are several players who have been dropped from the list. Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma, Deepak Chahar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hanuma Vihari, Mayank Agarwal and Wriddhiman Saha were in the last central contract list but have missed out this time.
BCCI Central contracts:
Grade A+:
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A:
Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel.
Grade B:
Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill.
Grade C:
Umesh Yadav, Shikhar Dhawan, Shardul Thakur, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat