Veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara and former Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane were demoted in the latest central contracts list that was ratified by BCCI’s Apex Council on Wednesday.
The BCCI has four categories: A-plus which has annual remuneration of Rs 7 crore while A, B and C categories are valued at Rs 5 crore, Rs 3 crore and Rs 1 crore respectively. This year, 27 cricketers have been awarded contracts with all-format skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah static as A-plus players.
Pujara, Rahane and Ishant Sharma, who were in Grade A are now in Grade B, after a slump in form that saw them being dropped from the upcoming home Test series against Sri Lanka. Category A has five players including Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and Mohammed Shami.
The biggest demotion, however, was for injury-ravaged all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who has been dropped from Grade A to C in the list along with senior opener Shikhar Dhawan, who now plays only one format and that is ODIs.
Controversial keeper-batter Wriddhiman Saha, who has been dropped from the Test team will get Rs 1 crore as he has been placed in Category C. Spinner Kuldeep Yadav and pacer Navdeep Saini have been dropped from the list altogether. Mayank Agarwal, who has been inconsistent throughout, has now been demoted to group C from group B.
The ones who have been rewarded are Mohammed Siraj, who is now in group B for his lion-hearted performances while middle-order batter Suryakumar Yadav, by virtue of playing the requisite number of games, is now in group C.