Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane among others demoted in BCCI central contracts

In the latest BCCI central contracts that the Board’s Apex Council ratified on Wednesday, some of the prominent names have been downgraded. Test veterans like Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma and Wriddhiman Saha have all been demoted in the annual contracts as reported by Cricbuzz.

While Pujara, Rahane and Ishant have been put in Grade B from Grade A, the wicketkeeper-batter Saha has been moved to Group C from Group B.

Notably, the BCCI has four categories – A+, which has annual remuneration of INR 7 crore, while A, B and C categories are valued at INR 5 crore, INR 3 crore and INR 1 crore, respectively. Last time, 28 cricketers were handed over the central contracts, but 27 have been awarded contracts this year.

India’s newly appointed all-format captain Rohit Sharma, former skipper Virat Kohli and frontline pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah are the only players who are in category A+.

When it comes to Grade A, it features only five players in the form of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant. This Group had earlier 10 players.

Another eye-catching demotion was for injury-ravaged all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who has been demoted from Grade A to C in the list along with senior opener Shikhar Dhawan, who now only plays one format, and that is ODIs.

Here are the Central Contracts details:

Grade A+ (INR 7 crore)

• Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah

Grade A (INR 5 crore)

• Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant

Grade B (INR 3 crore)

• Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Ishant Sharma

Grade C (INR 1 crore)

• Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Yuzvendra Chahal, Suryakumar Yadav, Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal