BCCI Contracts Updated: Pant Climbs, Shreyas & Kishan Back — Others Dropped
BCCI Contracts Updated
BCCI Contracts Updated: 34 players, up from 30 the previous time, received retainers for the 2024–25 season, with four of them in the highest category.
After being excluded from the BCCI‘s central contracts list the last time, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan are back on it for 2024–25.
Four players—Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja—are on the top tier of contracts (A+). Aside from R Ashwin being dropped, who retired from international cricket late last year, little has changed. After India won the T20 World Cup in June of last year, Rohit, Kohli, and Jadeja were kept in the top division even though they had retired from T20Is.
Along with Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, and Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant has been upgraded from Grade B to Grade A.
Pant had been in Grade A for the 2022–2023 season, but after a terrible vehicle accident in December 2022 that kept him out of action for more than a year, he was demoted to Grade B. Since then, he has played in all formats for India, returning to Grade A after playing 10 Test matches, one ODI, and ten T20Is. He returned to play in the IPL 2024.
Kishan has been added to Grade C, while Iyer, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav are all in Grade B.
Nitish Kumar Reddy, Dhruv Jurel, Abhishek Sharma, Sarfaraz Khan, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy, and Harshit Rana are the newcomers to the contracts list; they are all presently in Grade C.
Last year, Jitesh Sharma, Avesh Khan, KS Bharat, and Shardul Thakur were all dropped from the Grade C list, which is the lowest retainer.
ESPNcricinfo thinks that the four contract categories’ amounts—which the BCCI did not specify—are probably INR 7 crore (A+), INR 5 crore (A), INR 3 crore (B), and INR 1 crore (C).
BCCI Contracts Updated :
Last year, Iyer and Kishan were unable to play in the domestic season, which resulted in their contract termination. Kishan had decided to play in the DY Patil T20 event rather than return to domestic cricket for Jharkhand, while Iyer had told the Mumbai Cricket Association that he had been experiencing back spasms. Later on, Kishan also resumed playing domestic cricket, playing all formats for Jharkhand in the 2024–25 campaign.
“All athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team,” the BCCI had requested in a statement at the time.
Shreyas has enjoyed great success in a variety of mediums since then. Since March 2024, he has contributed to five championship victories: the 2023–24 Ranji Trophy, the 2024–25 Irani Cup, the 2024–25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and the IPL victory with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as captain. In addition, he played a significant role in India’s Champions Trophy victory, as he finished as the tournament’s second-highest run scorer with 243 runs in five innings.
Varun, one of the list’s recent additions, has advanced in the previous 12 months. Since his triumph in the T20I series against Bangladesh last year, he has been a consistent player in the format. In addition, he participated in the Champions Trophy and made his ODI debut last year, taking nine wickets in three games. Rana participated in two Champions Trophy games and just made his debut in all three forms.
Players under contract for 2024–2025 :
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja are in category A+.
Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, and Mohammed Siraj are in category A.
Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Shreyas Iyer are in category B.
Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy, and Harshit Rana are all in category C.
