BCCI annual contracts: Rohit, Virat Kohli in grade A plus category; Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan dropped

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Wednesday announced the annual player contracts for Team India (Senior Men) for the 2023-24 season. Interestingly, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan have not been considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations.

Four top players--- Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja have been put in the Grade A Plus while six other players have been placed in Grade A by the BCCI.

The players in Grade A include- R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.

Grade B (5 Athletes)

Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Grade C (15 Athletes)

Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaekwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan and Rajat Patidar.

The Selection Committee has also recommended Fast Bowling contracts for the following athletes – Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and Vidwath Kaverappa.

“Additionally, athletes who meet the criteria of playing a minimum of 3 Tests or 8 ODIs or 10 T20Is within the specified period will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis. For instance, Dhruv Jurel and Sarfaraz Khan, having played 2 Test matches so far, will be inducted into Grade C if they participate in the Dharamsala Test Match, i.e., the 5th Test of the ongoing series against England,”BCCI said in its release.