BCCI Central Contracts 2024-25: Rohit-Virat maintained in top grade, promotion to Pant

Sports News: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has released the annual central contract list of senior male players for the 2024-25 season on 21 April. This time a total of 34 players have been contracted, which have seen some major changes.

Rohit and Virat in top grade despite retirement

T20 World Cup winning team captain Rohit Sharma and star player Virat Kohli retired from this format, even after this, B.C.C.I. Has included them in Grade A. Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja along with them are also intact in this bracket. This is clear that the board still considers him very important for ODI and Test cricket.

Pant promotion, Iyer-Kishan's 'Homecoming'

Rishabh Pant, who made a comeback after a long injury break, has been promoted from grade B and put in grade A this time. At the same time, Shreyas Iyer and Ishaan Kishan, who lost the contract due to distance from domestic cricket last year, have returned - Iyer has been included in Grade B and Kishan in Grade C.

Ashwin and Shardul out, new faces entry

Bowler R.K. Ashwin has been removed from this list. Apart from this, players like Jitesh Sharma and Shardul Thakur have also been out of the list. At the same time, young faces like Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurael, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakraborty and Harshit Rana have been given a chance for the first time or again.

BCCI Central Contract List 2024-25 

Grade A (₹ 7 crore annually)

• Rohit Sharma
• Virat Kohli
• Jaspreet Bumrah
• Ravindra jadeja

Grade A (₹ 5 crore annually)

• Mohammed Shami
• Hardik Pandya
• Mohammad Siraj
• KL Rahul
• Shubman Gill
• Rishabh Pant (promote from B)

Grade B (₹ 3 crore annually)

• Suryakumar Yadav
• Kuldeep Yadav
• Akshar Patel
• Yashasvi Jaiswal
• Shreyas Iyer (return)

Grade C (₹ 1 crore annually)

• Ishaan Kishan 
• Rinku Singh
• Tilak Verma
• Ruturaj Gaekwad
• Shivam Dubey
• Ravi Bishnoi
• Mukesh Kumar
• Sanju Samson
• Arshdeep Singh
• Famous Krishna
• Rajat Patidar
• Dhruv jurael
• Sarfaraz Khan
• Nitish Kumar Reddy
• Abhishek Sharma 
• Akash Deep 
• Varun Chakraborty 
• Harshit Rana 
• Washington Sundar

What is BCCI rule?

Players who play at least 3 Tests, 8 ODIs or 10 T20i throughout the year are automatically included in Grade C on a pro-radia basis.