The central contracts of the year 2020 were released by BCCI on Thursday (16th
January). The biggest name who missed out on the contract was the legendary
Indian keeper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Surprisingly, upcoming wicket-keeper
batsman Rishabh Pant earned an ‘A’ category contract.
BCCI declared the list of contracted players in 4 different categories namely
‘A+’, ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. The peculiarities of these contracts are that the ‘A+’ players will earn 7 Crores INR while the succeeding sectioned players will receive 5 Crores, 3 Crores and 1 Crore INR, respectively.
While a majority of the players retained their contracts, the notable exclusions
from the contract list were left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed, wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik and one of the most controversial batsmen Ambati Rayudu.
Talking about the players who received a promotion, Karnataka’s right-handed
batsman Mayank Agarwal earned a B contract courtesy of his giant strides in the longest format of the game. Also, hailing from the state, KL Rahul jumped from the B category to the A grade one.
Only three players made it to the A+ grade contract and they are captain Virat Kohli, vice-captain Rohit Sharma and the team’s premier fast bowler, Jasprit Bumrah. It is amazing to note that Hardik Pandya finds himself in B category despite being the team’s number 1 all-rounder in all formats.
MS Dhoni’s absence has left the cricket universe in splits. There was a trend of ThankYouDhoni on Twitter rising speculation on his retirement. However, the fan club of Chennai Super Kings should not be disappointed because Thala has said that he will play in IPL 2020. Also, Ravi Shastri has told that his IPL 2020 performance will decide his place in the Indian T20 World Cup squad.
On that note, let us now have a look at the complete list of contract earners
from BCCI and their grades in brief.
BCCI Central Contracts for 2019-20
Grade A+ (INR 7 cr)
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah
Grade A (INR 5 cr)
Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara,
Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma,
Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant
Grade B (INR 3 cr)
Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Mayank
Agarwal
Grade C (INR 1 cr)
Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari,
Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar
