BCCI has announced the central contract for October 2022 to September 2023. A total of 26 players have been included in the central contract. BCCI has placed players under 4 grades A+, A, B, and C. There are four players in A+ grade. This includes skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jaspreet Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja. Jadeja has been upgraded to A+ category. BCCI pays Rs 7 crore as an annual retention fee to the players included in this list.
BCCI has kept 5 players in A grade in its annual contract. At the same time, 6 players are included in B grade and 11 in grade C.
Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant and Akshar Patel have been kept in A grade. Lokesh Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammad Siraj, Suryakumar Yadav, and Shubman Gill have got a place in B grade.
Whereas Shikhar Dhawan, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Ishaan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, and KS Bharat are included in grade C.
Ravindra Jadeja has been brought in Grade-A Plus. At the same time, KL Rahul, the former vice-captain of the India team, has been reduced to Grade B. KL Rahul was included in Grade A of the Central Contract List from October 2021 to September 2022.
Under this, he used to get Rs 5 crore annually as a retainer ship fee. The Board of Control for Cricket in India gives Rs 5 crore annually to the players included in A-grade. Players in B grade get Rs 3 crore, and C grade gets Rs 1 crore as an annual retainer ship fee.
Last year only Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah were in the A+ list. Now Ravindra Jadeja has also been included. Jadeja has performed brilliantly since his return to international cricket. He is a part of the Indian team in all three formats.
At the same time, Hardik Pandya has benefited a lot. He was earlier in C-grade. This time he has kept in A grade. Pandya has also been made the captain of the T20 earlier this year. Akshar Patel has also got the award for all-round performance. He was in B grade in the last contract. Now have joined an A grade. At the same time, Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav have also benefited well. Both of them have come from C to B grades.
At the same time, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma, Deepak Chahar, Hanuma Vihari, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have been dropped from the central contract list.
