The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is reportedly planning an overhaul of its Central Contract tier system. According to ANI, the board might scrap the top-most A+ category, which was until now reserved for all-format players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah.
The report said that Kohli and Rohit, who have retired from Tests and T20Is, might be demoted to the ‘B’ category for the first time in over a decade. The report said the new system, with just three categories — A, B and C — has been proposed by the Ajit Agarkar-led men’s selection committee and is pending approval.
Announced in April 2025, the 2024–25 central contracts place Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja in the top A+ bracket. Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami and Rishabh Pant feature in Grade A.
Grade B includes Suryakumar Yadav, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Shreyas Iyer. Grade C comprises 19 players, most of them being one-format stars, these are: Varun Chakaravarthy, Sanju Samson, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Akash Deep, Sarfaraz Khan, Tilak Verma, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi, Ishan Kishan, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Abhishek Sharma, Rajat Patidar, Mukesh Kumar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel and Shivam Dube.
While A+ category players earn Rs. 7 crore annually, there’s a retainer of Rs. 5 crore for Grade A, Rs. 3 crore for Grade B, and Rs. 1 crore for Grade C. The BCCI shuffles around the players between categories, adds some and removes others every year according to their stature and playing time across formats.
Every few years, the BCCI increases the retainer amount across categories, too. This year, with just three categories, the value should ideally increase manifold, though the report said that will be decided by the next Apex Council meeting of the central board.
With Jadeja also retired from T20Is and his skills declining in ODIs, and Bumrah usually given rest for bilateral series, there aren’t any senior truly all-format players. Most featuring in more than two formats are youngsters like Rana and Reddy, who are still finding their feet in some setups.
