BCCI announces annual player contracts; Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal get demoted

BCCI announces annual player contracts; Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal get demoted

Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Chahal

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced its annual player contracts for the time period from October 2020 to September 2021. There aren’t a lot of changes in the new list as just two players have dropped out from last year, with three players joining in.

The Indian team has been in terrific form over the course of the year, tasting unprecedented success. Since the COVID-19 pandemic alone, the Indian side has won 5 out of 6 series with the ODI series loss in Australia being the only loss. Further, the side has solidified its position as the No. 1 side in Tests and also qualified for the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) which will take place in June against New Zealand in Southampton.

Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal get demoted to C category

Yuzvendra Chahal
Yuzvendra Chahal

With regard to those with an A+ contract, the same three players have been retained in captain Virat Kohli, vice-captain Rohit Sharma and ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah. Two players from last year have missed out on contracts in Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav, both of whom have fallen below in the pecking order with regard to their position in the side’s middle-order in limited overs cricket.

Recent debutants like Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan have not been given a contract yet, while it seems likely that they would receive it by next year. There are however, three new entrants in the form of Shubman Gill, Mohammed Siraj and Axar Patel.

Further, India’s wrist spinning duo Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav have been demoted to the C category after falling below the pecking order a bit with their rusty form this year.

The pay bracket for each grade is 7 crores, 5 crores, 3 crores and 1 crore for Grade A+, A, B and C respectively.

The full contract details are as follows

Grade C

Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari , Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj

Grade B

Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal

Grade A

R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya

Grade A+

Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah

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