BCCI announces annual contracts for Indian cricketers

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today announced its central contracts for the ongoing season. A total of 32 players were awarded central contracts by the Indian board. The fees of players in all the three contract grades A, B and C has been doubled. The enhanced fee will be effective from October 1, 2016.

As per this contract, all the players who feature in Test cricket for India will be paid Rs 15 lakhs per Test which is more than double of Rs 7 lakhs that was paid previously. The match fees for the limited-overs formats has also been doubled, the One-Day International cricketers will earn Rs 6 lakhs per ODI and those playing the Twenty20 Internationals be paid a fees of Rs 3 lakhs for each T20I.

Allrounder Ravindra Jadeja, who is now at the top of the Test bowlers rankings has been awarded a Grade A contract which has retainer fees Rs 2 crore. He had the biggest jump as he was in the Grade C contracted players in the last list.

Test No.3 Cheteshwar Pujara who only plays the longest format of the game is also among the top contracted players of the BCCI. Pujara earlier had a B contract. Opener Murali Vijay who is also among the specialists for the format was upgraded into the A list. Others who have A contract are Test skipper Virat Kohli, former skipper MS Dhoni and Ajinkya Rahane.

Suresh Raina who was among the Grade B players last year has not been offered a contract this time. Raina last played for Team India in the World Cup 2017, he was a part of the team for the ODI series against New Zealand but couldn’t participate since he was suffering from fever.

Grade A (Annual retainer amount – INR 2 Cr):

Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay

In the B list feature those players who recently made their debut or feature in one or two formats of the game. The annual retainer amount for these players is INR 1 crore. Pace spearhead in the longest format of the game, Ishant Sharma whose contribution to the Indian team has been restricted to the longest format has a Grade B contract along with KL Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha and others.

Grade B (Annual retainer amount – INR 1 Cr):

Rohit Sharna, KL Rahul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharm, Umesh Yadav, Wriddhiman Saha, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuvraj Singh

Grade C is the basic level contract offered by the BCCI. An annual retainer fee of INR 50 lakh is paid to these players. Those players who are in reckoning but don’t feature in the Indian team often or recently made their debut, play just the shortest format of the game or are not a regular feature in the team are placed in this bracket.

Grade C:

Shikhar Dhawan, Ambati Rayudu, Amit Mishra, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Hardik Pandya, Ashish Nehra, Kedar Jadhav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Parthiv Patel, Jayant Yadav, Mandeep Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni, Shardul Thakur, Rishabh Pant