The Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) has excluded Mahendra Singh Dhoni from the BCCI contract list. In the last year, he was in Grade A. Dhoni has not played international cricket for the past six months.
The BCCI released its contract list on Thursday. It has tied up with 27 players. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah have been given the top grade “A Plus”. They were in this grade last year as well.
Dhoni alone is out among the known players. No other player has been demoted in the new grade list of the BCCI annual contract.
A player gets Rs 7 crore a year if listed in Grade A +. He gets Rs 5 crore if in Grade A, Rs 3 crore if in Grade B and Rs 1 crore if in Grade C.
Rahul has come up from Grade B to Grade A and Saha from Grade C to Grade B, Mayank Agarwal and Shreyas Iyer have been contracted this time.
Apart from former Team India captain Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik, Ambati Rayudu and Khalil Ahmed have been dropped from the contract list. Dhoni has been out of the cricket field since India’s departure from World Cup 2019 where, in a semifinal match, he was run out.
Mayank Agarwal, Shreyas Iyer, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar have been included in the BCCI contract list for the first time. Mayank has got a grade B position. The rest of the players are in Grade C.
Wriddhiman Saha and KL Rahul have been promoted by the board. Rahul was in grade B last year, this time he was included in A grade. Saha was in Grade C; he got a grade B this time.
Three players including Kohli in A + grade
| Player | Grade in 2019 | Grade in 2019 | Annual contract (in Rs) |
| Virat Kohli | A + | A + | 7 crore |
| Rohit Sharma | A + | A + | 7 crore |
| Jasprit Bumrah | A + | A + | 7 crore |
Eleven players including KL Rahul and Dhawan in A grade
| Player | Grade in 2020 | Grade in 2019 | Annual contract (in Rs) |
| Ravichandran Ashwin | A | A | 5 crore |
| Ravindra Jadeja | A | A | 5 crore |
| Bhubaneswar Kumar | A | A | 5 crore |
| Chateshwar Pujara | A | A | 5 crore |
| Ajinkya Rahane | A | A | 5 crore |
| KL Rahul | A | B | 5 crore |
| Shikhar Dhawan | A | A | 5 crore |
| Mohammed Shami | A | A | 5 crore |
| Ishant Sharma | A | A | 5 crore |
| Kuldeep Yadav | A | A | 5 crore |
| Rishabh Pant | A | A | 5 crore |
Mayank Agarwal: new face in B grade
| Player | Grade in 2020 | Grade in 2019 | Annual contract (in Rs) |
| Riddhiman Saha | B | C | 3 crore |
| Umesh Yadav | B | B | 3 crore |
| Yuzvendra Chahal | B | B | 3 crore |
| Hardik Pandya | B | B | 3 crore |
| Mayank Agarwal | B | – | 3 crore |
There are eight players in the C grade, 5 of these new
| Player | Grade in 2020 | Grade in 2019 | Annual contract (in Rs) |
| Kedar Jadhav | C | C | 1 crore |
| Navdeep Saini | C | – | 1 crore |
| Deepak Chahar | C | – | 1 crore |
| Manish Pandey | C | C | 1 crore |
| Hanuma Vihari | C | C | 1 crore |
| Shardul Thakur | C | – | 1 crore |
| Shreyas Iyer | C | – | 1 crore |
| Washington Sundar | C | – | 1 crore |
