BCCI released the central contract list, notably scrapping the A+ category as per speculation and demoting Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to Grade B. A total of 30 players have got central contracts in three categories. Shubman Gill the Indian test and ODI captain along with Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja remained in the top tier, while India’s one more three-format player Axar Patel, has been downgraded to grade C. However, the BCCI has not disclosed the salary cap for this setup.
Additions and demotions in the list
Kishan who is now playing in the World Cup, has missed all of the matches last year and for that reason, he has been excluded from the list. Mohammad Shami who is having a great Ranji season so far also faced an omission from the list. Along with, Sarfaraz Khan, Mukesh Kumar and Rajat Patidar. While, Sai Sudarshan is the only new addition this year.
Category-wise players list-
Category A: Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja.
Category B: Washington Sundar, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer.
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Category C: Axar Patel, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, B Sai Sudharsan, Ravi Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad.
Women’s central contracts
BCCI has also released the central contracts for the women players, in which Jemimah Rodrigues moved to Grade A and Sneh Rana also got a promotion after having a stunning comeback. The list is filled with new players, Sree Charani. Harleen Deol along with new debutants, Vaishnavi Sharma, G Kamalini, Shreyanka Patil and Pooja Vastrakar.
Category-wise players list-
Grade A: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma
Grade B: Renuka Thakur, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Sneh Rana, Radha Yadav, Amanjot Kaur, Pratika Rawal, Kranti Gaud, Uma Chetry, Arundhati Reddy.
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Grade C: Shree Charani, Yastika Bhatia, Harleen Deol, Kashvee Gautam, G Kamalini, Vaishnavi Sharma, Tejal Hasabnis.
