BCCI announces annual players contract for 2019-20; MS Dhoni goes missing

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday announced the Annual Player Contracts for Team India for the period starting from October 2019 to September 2020. Team India’s players (Senior Men) were divided into four primary groups- ‘Grade A+, Grade A, Grade B and Grade C’ for the distribution of contracts. The players slotted in Grade A+ category are bound to receive INR 7 Cr while the ones grouped in Grade A category will be receiving INR 5 Cr.

The players placed in Grade B and Grade C category will receive INR 3 Cr and INR 1 Cr respectively. The trio of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah has been fitted into the Grade A+ category, who will receive INR 7 Cr.

Many eminent players including Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami and Rishabh Pant have been included in the Grade A category. One notable exclusion from the Annual Player Contracts is MS Dhoni- who has been away from the game since India’s World Cup 2019 defeat against New Zealand. There have been many speculations lately regarding the 38-year-old’s retirement from the game.

India’s first-choice Test wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha has been slotted into the Grade B category along with Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya and Mayank Agarwal.

Shreyas Iyer, who has been in sublime form for India and has helped in solving the No.4 conundrum lately, has been fitted into the Grade C category along with many prominent names like Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Hanuma Vihar and Washington Sundar.

Here’s the complete list of BCCI’s annual player retainership 2019-20:

Grade A+

Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah

Grade A

Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, K L Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohd. Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant

Grade B

Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal

Grade C

Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar