BCCI announce Annual Player Contracts for 2020-21; Kuldeep Yadav demoted to ‘C’ grade
The BCCI have announced the Annual Player Contracts for Team India for the 2020/21 calendar year, in which both Kuldeep Yadav and Bhuvenshwar Kumar have received demotions. Kohli, Bumrah and Rohit have been awarded the highest grade, while Hardik Pandya has also been promoted to ‘A’ category.
One year ago, The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) dropped a bombshell by omitting former skipper MS Dhoni out of the centrally contracted players’ list, but while there are no such shocks in the revised list announced by the board today, for the 2020/21 calendar year, there are, nevertheless, a fair few surprises.
Like in the 2019/20 calendar year, Jasprit Bumrah, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma remain the only three players with an A+ contract, which translates to INR 7 crore in salary. There is a new face in the form of Hardik Pandya in the ‘A’ category (INR 5 Cr) as all-rounder Hardik Pandya has seen himself receive a promotion. Pandya, last year, was the holder of a ‘B’ contract.
Two more names that are missing, however, from the ‘A’ list are Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Kuldeep Yadav. Bhuvneshwar, who has suffered a plethora of injuries over the past couple of years, has seen himself get demoted to B grade (INR 3 Cr), while Kuldeep, who has fallen out of favor due to his drastic drop in form, finds himself demoted to the ‘C’ category (INR 1 Cr). Kuldeep’s former partner-in-crime, Yuzvendra Chahal, has also dropped a grade, from B to C.
Axar Patel, Mohammed Siraj and Shubman Gill are newcomers who have been awarded a C grade contract, while both Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav find themselves out of the list.
GRADE A+ (INR 7 crore)
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah
GRADE A (INR 5 crore)
R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya
GRADE B (INR 3 crore)
Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal
GRADE C (INR 1 crore)
Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari , Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj