Bengaluru, April 14: India's star troika -- of skipper Virat Kohli, his deputy in shorter formats Rohit Sharma and pace ace Jasprit Bumrah -- have retained their top brackets in the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) annual contracts announced for the senior team for the period from October 2020 to September 2021.
A total of 28 cricketers were awarded central contracts in four categories, BCCI Secretary Jay Shah announced via a press release.
All-rounder Hardik Pandya is one of the notable promotions to Grade A, which is worth Rs 5 crore, while rookies Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj have got their maiden central contracts worth Rs 1 crore in Grade C.
ALERT🚨: BCCI announces annual player retainership 2020-21 - #TeamIndia (Senior Men) for the period from October 2020 to September 2021.
— BCCI (@BCCI) April 15, 2021
Payment structure:
Grade A+ : INR 7 Cr
Grade A : INR 5 Cr
Grade B : INR 3 Cr
Grade C : INR 1 Crhttps://t.co/WgtmO7pIOv pic.twitter.com/ycnPcXPYJu
Among the demotions, pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar has dropped to Grade B, which is worth Rs 3 crore.
T Natarajan who impressed on his international debut in India's successful tour Down Under and Manish Pandey, who has been in and out of the team, are two main players to have missed out on the central contracts while the out-of-favour Kedhar Jadhav's omission went very much along the expected lines.
Full List of BCCI's Contracted Players With Salary Details:
GRADE A+ (Rs 7 crore): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah.
GRADE A (Rs 5 crore): R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya.
GRADE B (Rs 3 crore): Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal.
GRADE C (Rs 1 crore): Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari , Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj.
(With PTI/BCCI Media inputs)