In an important development, a media report indicates that the BCCI is about to make public the players’ central contract 2025-26 list in the next day or two. The Indian cricket board has made major changes to the current list, mainly focusing on the two stars – Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
A report from Sportstak mentioned that Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who are presently in the ‘A+’ group of the central contract, will be pushed down to the ‘A’ level. The reason for this supposed alteration is quite straightforward since the 2 legends are participating only in one format. In addition, the top class is generally designated for players taking part in two or three formats.
The ODI and Test captain of India, Shubman Gill, is all but guaranteed a promotion as he is going to be moved up from ‘A’ to ‘A+’ category. The right-handed batsman will be in the company of Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah, who will be the other two players apart from Gill to be found in the highest category.
After SMAT heroics Ishan Kishan to make a comeback
With a long absence, Ishan Kishan will regain his spot in the central contract. It is highly expected that the left-hander will be categorized in B, just like Shreyas Iyer. For those who are not aware, in 2024, the supreme cricketing authority had punished Iyer and Kishan for misconduct and expelled them from the contract.
The captain of Punjab Kings was restored to the contract last year, but Kishan was not able to get his central contract back along with a place in the T20 World Cup 2026 squad until recently with his SMAT 2025-26 heroics.
Let’s see the current list of the BCCI central contracts.
BCCI Central Contract list 2024-2025
Grade A+: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja
Grade A: Rishabh Pant, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya
Grade B: Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal
Grade C: Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, 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 Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana
The BCCI will also look at a proposal to change match fees for umpires and match referees, which has been a long-standing demand of the domestic circuit, as per the same media report.
