On 26th March 2023, the BCCI announced its Annual Player Contracts for the 2023/23 season. Ravindra Jadeja, as usual, hogged the limelight for getting a promotion to the Grade A+ contract, which will fetch him INR 7 crore, from the Grade A contract last year, and joins Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Jasprit Bumrah in the Grade A+ category of BCCI’s annual player retainer-ship 2022-23.
Senior all-rounder and white-ball vice-captain Hardik Pandya, too, got a big jump this time, moving up from Grade C to Grade A. Other players such as KS Bharat, Kuldeep Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Sanju Samson, and Arshdeep Singh are all newly-contracted players in Grade C.
A Grade A+ contract is worth INR 7 crore, Grade A is INR 5 crore, Grade B is INR 3 crore, and Grade C is INR 1 crore.
A number of players have also been demoted – some are demoted from a higher grade to lower grade, while some – such as Saha, Ishant, and Mayank are dropped from the Board annual contracts altogether.
Here are 3 big Indian players who have been demoted in BCCI’s Annual Contracts and will earn less this season:
KL Rahul – from Grade A to B
Senior player has had a difficult time in the Test team – during the home series against Australia, he was, mid-series, dropped owing to dismal form in the longest format and replaced by young opener Shubman Gill. LSG Skipper has also been sacked as the vice-captain of the white-ball team with Hardik Pandya ascending to that role.
This affected KL Rahul’s contract as he’s been demoted to Grade B from Grade A when he was an all-format player and vice-captain, and now sees a drop of INR 2 crore in his annual contracted salary from the Indian Board
He’s a crucial part of the ODI side playing as keeper-batter in the middle-order in the absence of Pant.
Ajinkya Rahane – dropped from The Board of Control for Cricket in India contracts
Senior batter and former Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane has been dropped from the Indian Boarsd’s annual contracts altogether after being omitted from the Test team last year after the South Africa tour ended in January. Alongside Rahane, Pujara, Ishant, and Saha were also dropped from the Test side with only Pujara managing to make a comeback in the team.
Shardul Thakur – from Grade B to C
Shardul Thakur has seen a 2 crore drop in his The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s contracts as he moves down to Grade C from B. While included in bilateral series, Thakur didn’t find a place in the Asia Cup and T20 World Cup squads. He played just one Test match – against Edgbaston in England in the rescheduled fifth Test – in the past year – all the Tests in the last 12 months have been played in India and Bangladesh, where India didn’t need Thakur but he had performed well on the England and South Africa tours.
List of BCCI contracts for Indian men players:
Grade A+ category: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja
Grade A category: Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel
Grade B category: Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill
Grade C category: Umesh Yadav, Shikhar Dhawan, Shardul Thakur, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat
