Kumar and Raina are two notable relegations from Grade A.
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Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was India’s Player of the Series in England in 2014, has been relegated to Grade B as has Suresh Raina.
Suresh Raina’s dip in form cost him a slip in the BCCI’s list of contracted players, where Ajinkya Rahane replaced the Uttar Pradesh batsman in Grade A for the 2015-16 season. It is an elite group: only four players have made it to Grade A, others being Test captain Virat Kohli, limited-overs captain MS Dhoni and offspinner R Ashwin.
Grade A (Rs 1 crore) – 4 (last year 5): MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane. It is the latest sign that Rahane is being seen as one of the pillars this team will be built on for the next few years. They are put in Grade A (Rs 15 lakh) and B (Rs 10 lakh).
In Grade A, senior players Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur, M.D. Thirushkamini were named.
For the first time, BCCI also announced central contracts for women cricketers. Another Grade B contract holder, Pragyan Ojha, whose action came under the spotlight before he came back to domestic cricket with corrections, was not given any contract.
Ravindra Jadeja, who was the man of the match in the recently concluded Test against South Africa in Mohali, finds himself in Grade C this year after having been dropped from the Indian squad altogether recently.
No major exclusions in Grade B apart from Kumar’s relegation.
A total of 26 cricketers featured in the list of centrally-contracted Indian players while eight players, including Robin Uthappa and Vinay Kumar, who were contracted by BCCI past year, found themselves without one for 2015-16.
Test openers M Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan, batsmen Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma and Ambati Rayudu, and fast bowlers Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami retained their Grade B contracts, which carry a Rs 50 lakh retainer.
Grade C: Amit Mishra, Axar Patel, Stuart Binny, Wriddhiman Saha, Mohit Sharma, Varun Aaron, Karn Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Dhawal Kulkarni, Harbhajan Singh, S Arvind.
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The BCCI also announced the central contract list for the women’s team, with Mithali Raj (skipper), Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur and MD Thirushkamini making it to “Grade A”.
