Virat Kohli, Rohit & Bumrah remain the only men in Category A+, rising stars Shubman & Siraj earn new contracts, while Manish Pandey, Natarajan, Prithvi Shaw and others miss out.
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BCCI PLAYER CONTRACTS 2021-22 | |||
GRADE | BATSMEN (12) | BOWLERS (11) | ALL-ROUNDERS (5) |
A+ | Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma | Jasprit Bumrah | |
A | Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant | Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma | R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Hardik Pandya |
B | Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal | Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar | |
C | Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Shreyas Iyer | Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj | Axar Patel, Washington Sundar |
PLAYER CATEGORY MOVEMENT | |||
PLAYER NAME | EARLIER | CURRENT | RANK |
Hardik Pandya | B | A |  |
Shardul Thakur | C | B | |
Kuldeep Yadav | A | C |  |
Bhuvneshwar Kumar | A | B | |
The skipper Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and ace speedster Jasprit Bumrah are the only players in the A+ category and have rightfully earned their place there. Being a part of the A+ category, all the players will be receiving an annual salary of Rs. 7 Crores. The one name expected to earn promotion into A+ was perhaps Ravindra Jadeja, with contributions in all formats of the game, but he remained in category A.
The A Category also includes players like Ravichandran Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Rishabh Pant. All the players in this category will earn a sum of Rs. 5 Crores. Hardik Pandya is one of the two players who got promoted in this year’s contracts list even though he was injured for a large part of the last year, whereas Kuldeep Yadav loses his spot in the A category and is demoted all the way down to the C category.
Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, and Mayank Agarwal once again take their place in the B Category earning Rs. 3 Crores. Bhuvneshwar Kumar who has spent time out due to injury lost his place in the A category and finds himself in B. The other player who got promoted this year was Shardul Thakur who will now earn Rs. 3 Crores annually, thanks to his exceptional performances in white ball cricket.
The C category saw three new rising stars – Shubman Gill, Axar Patel, and Mohammed Siraj who will all earn Rs. 1 Crore annually. Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Hanuma Vihari, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar are the players who retain their spot in the C category. Yuzvendra Chahal was demoted from the B category after a bunch of performances that have seen him drop down the pecking order a little and search for rhythm with the ball at times.
Sadly, Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav are out of contract this year and also missing out were high profile names such as Suryakumar Yadav, T Natarajan, Prithvi Shaw, Ishan Kishan and Krunal Pandya. Some of these players miss out on the list as they do not meet the minimum requirement to get a contract. A player automatically makes the Grade C cut once he plays three Tests/five ODIs or eight T20Is and while Natarajan etc. have not yet fulfilled that criteria, a few men could find themselves in Grade C at some stage before September-end and ahead of the T20 World Cup in India later this year.
[Image Credit: Indian Cricket Team]
Shashank Iyer