Veteran batsmen Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane have been downgraded in the latest central contracts list of the BCCI that the Board’s Apex Council approved on Wednesday.
The list includes some players who have been out of favor for a long time. The BCCI has four employees: A, B, and C. A has an annual salary of Rs 7 crore, while B has an annual salary of Rs 5 crore, C has an annual salary of Rs 3 crore, and C has an annual salary of Rs 1 crore.
READ MORE: To let spectators watch Kohli’s 100th test match at Mohali.
Last time, 28 cricketers were given central contracts, but only 27 have been given contracts this year. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Jasprit Bumrah are still A players.
People in grade A are now in grade B because of a poor run of form that led to them being dropped from the home Test series against Sri Lanka.
This is why Pujara, Rahane, and Ishant Sharma are now in grade B.
A report made by PTI on January 20 said that they would be downgraded.
Group A used to have 10 players, but now it only has five. Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, and Mohammed Shami still play.
Hardik Pandya, the all-rounder who has been sidelined for a long time, was downgraded from Grade A to C in the list. Shikhar Dhawan, the senior opener, now only plays ODIs.
As a result of being moved from group B to group C, Wriddhiman Saha will still be richer by Rs 1 crore. He was dropped from the Test team but will still be richer by Rs 1 crore.
India has kept Saha in group C even though the team management has said he will not play for India again.
Saha has broken the main contract clause by making public comments about selection and Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid’s statements.
On the day that ratification took place, some people who didn’t do well were demoted. This had been decided a long time ago.
Kuldeep Yadav and Navdeep Saini, part of the first group, have been removed from the list.
Mayank Agarwal, who has been inconsistent all the way through, has now been moved to group C instead of group B.
Mohammed Siraj and Suryakumar Yadav have been put in group B and group C because they played enough games.
Deepti and Rajeshwari were popular with women.
People in group A of women’s Central contracts were already there: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, and Poonam Yadav. Deepti Sharma and Rajeshwari Gayakwad joined them.
The group A fee is Rs 50 lakh per year.
Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami are still in group B, where they have been for a long time now (Rs 30 lakh).
Jemimah Rodrigues has been moved from Group B to Group C, so she is no longer in the group (Rs 10 lakh).
In South Africa, the venues for the series have been chosen.
For the five-match T20 series against South Africa, the BCCI has also agreed to play at five different places.
They will be in Cuttack, Visakhapatnam, New Delhi, Rajkot, and Chennai during the games.
Afterward, the series will be played in June, when the IPL is over.
She is now the new GM (Cricket Operations)
Abbey Kuruvilla, a senior national selector last year, has stepped down and is now the new General Manager (Cricket Operations), replacing Dhiraj Malhotra, who had been in that job.
Malhotra stepped down a few months ago to join Delhi Capitals.
Kuruvilla, the West Zone selector who beat Ajit Agarkar, had to give up his job because the constitution says that any national selector (junior or senior) can’t stay in the same job for more than five years at a time.
To pick Kuruvilla, it was not taken into account that he had already served as chairman of the junior national selection committee for four years, so he only had one year on the job.
National Women’s T20 from April 15
Because of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the senior women’s domestic T20 event had to be postponed.
The event will start on April 15 and last until May 12.
The Apex Council also agreed that the C K Nayudu Trophy could be played from March 15 to May 1.
