The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) declared the annual central contracts for the period October 2020 to September 2021 on Thursday. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah, India’s captain, have been retained in the A+ group and will earn Rs 7 crore per year. The BCCI has divided players into four grades, similar to last year, with most Test specialists such as Ravichandran Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, and Ravindra Jadeja earning a retainership of Rs 5 crore in Grade A.
Five players in Grade B will receive Rs 3 crore, including fast bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, and Shardul Thakur.
Hardik Pandya, who played in Grade B last season, has been upgraded to Grade A, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the ICC Player of the Month for March, has been demoted to Group B. Kuldeep Yadav has been demoted from Grade A to Grade C, while Mohammed Siraj and Shubman Gill have landed their first central contracts, earning Rs 1 crore in Grade C.
Yuzvendra Chahal, a leg-spinner, has been relegated to the fourth and final grade, while Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav have been dropped entirely from the central contract list.
Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, and Hardik Pandya are all in the Grade A (Rs 5 crore)
Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, and Mayank Agarwal are in Grade B (Rs 3 crore).
Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubhman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Mohammed Siraj are among the Grade C (Rs 1 crore)