The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday announced the annual contract of the Indian men’s cricket team for October 2022 to September 2023 season. Players have been placed under four categories -- A+, A, B and C. Players placed in the top category (A+) will earn Rs 7 crore. Players placed in the grade A category will earn Rs 5 crore annually. Grade B category players will earn Rs 3 crore annually. A total of 11 players in the grade C category will be paid Rs 1 crore by the BCCI.
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As per the latest payments structure by the apex board, four players have been placed in grade A+ contract, five players have been kept in grade A, six players in grade B grade and 11 players in grade C. This time only Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja have been given a Grade A+ contract.
Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant and Akshar Patel received grade A contracts. Cheteshwar Pujara, Lokesh Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Suryakumar Yadav and Shubman Gill received grade B contracts. Whereas, Umesh Yadav, Shikhar Dhawan, Shardul Thakur, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh and KS Bharat received grade C contracts.
Ravindra Jadeja, who was earlier in grade A, received a handsome promotion for his heroics in recently-concluded IND vs AUS Tests as he received a grade A+ contract from BCCI. Hardik Pandya, who was earlier in grade C, has been given grade A contract for 2022-23 season. Axar Patel has been promoted from grade B to grade A.
'Under-fire' KL Rahul, after being removed as India's Test vice-captain due to a prolonged lean patch in the format, was demoted from grade A to B. World's no. 1 T20I batter Suryakumar Yadav and talented youngster Shubman Gill have been promoted from grade C to B. Shardul Thakur has been promoted from grade B to C. Ajinkya Rahane and Ishant Sharma, who were earlier in grade B, have been dropped from the BCCI central contract for 2022-23 season.