Well done BCCI!! You finally managed to get something right
While the Indian team has been dominating proceedings on the pitch, off it, not too much has gone right for the Indian board. From the Kohli-Kumble fiasco to Ramchandra Guha’s constant attacks on the way the board and the CoA function, it has been a shameful state of affairs for almost a year now.
It was during the Kumble tenure that the then coach, along with the captain of the side, made their way to the administrators to talk about the retainers that were in place for the Indian cricket team. Despite being the biggest board in the world of cricket, the players were being paid peanuts as compared to their counterparts from other countries. Such was the disparity in the pay that a report claimed that the BCCI should have paid the players Rs. 354 crores in 2016.
While Kumble soon found himself in the search for a new job in July last year, the BCCI and CoA were left with a big decision to make. And, in an unusual turn of events, they went out and got it right. They moved away from the three-tier system of contracts to four levels and they have managed to increase the retainers of the players to such a level that it doesn’t look like an embarrassment anymore.
The A+ grade looks like it should with both batsmen and bowlers getting their due credit, in terms of money, from the BCCI. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah joined Virat Kohli, who was the only survivor from last season’s top-level contracts, in the top bracket of the new system. The Indian skipper was also joined by the two openers, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma as the players who would earn a cool 7 crores annually – a rise of five crores for the Indian skipper. What, however, was more of a pleasant surprise was the fact that players who had done well in the last year had been rewarded for their service rather than the have
With one century, Yuvraj somehow convinced the board to hand him a contract in the second bracket alongside Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Jasprit Bumrah.
Last year, even though MS Dhoni had not been a part of the Test side for almost two years, he was given a Grade A contract over Rohit Sharma who had been playing all three formats of the game. So were Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay. The latter had not played a limited overs match in over a year, the former in two years. Ajinkya Rahane had been in and out of the side for the longest time, not able to cement a place in any of the three formats that the game has to offer. However, they were all paid the “big bucks”.
But they were not the surprise inclusions. That honour fell to Yuvraj Singh. The 2011 WC Man of the series has not played ODI cricket since 2013 before making a comeback to the national side in 2017 against England. With one century, Yuvraj somehow convinced the board to hand him a contract in the second bracket alongside Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Jasprit Bumrah.
But the trend of back to back failures by the BCCI appears to be coming to an end. Indian cricket had to recover from an unwanted situation where it found itself in turmoil, leaving one of the most successful coaches, at least in terms of numbers, to fight it out publicly with the captain of the side. What was worse was the fact that the BCCI
But it appears that they have finally found their bearings this time around. The BCCI has been talking at length about the need to promote Test cricket and how the longest format of the game has its backing. And this time their moves are doing all the talking for them. The entire second bracket of the contracts is being dominated by purely Test players, with the exception of MS Dhoni. Players like Cheteshwar Pujara, Murali Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha, and Ravindra Jadeja have all been given retainers of 5 crores each – which is 2 crores more than what the regulars of the limited-overs teams earn.
As far as the newcomers or the comeback kids are concerned, they have been placed in either the Grade B or Grade C contracts which
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