Full list of BCCI's contracted players for 2018; Kohli, Bumrah lead new contract; Dhoni relegated

New Delhi, March 7: Former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and senior off-spinner R Ashwin were relegated from the top-paid bracket with the BCCI on Wednesday (March 7) introducing an A+ category in the central contracts for which only five players, including skipper Virat Kohli, were picked.

Men: A+ category (Rs 7 crore annually)

Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah.

A category (Rs 5 crore)

MS Dhoni, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Wridhhiman Saha.

B category (Rs 3 crore)

KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Mohammed Shami.

C Category (Rs 1 crore)

Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel, Jayant Yadav.

Women: A category (Rs 50 lakh)

Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana

B category (Rs 30 lakh)

Poonam Yadav, Veda Krishnamurthy, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Ekta Bisht, Shikha Pandey, Deepti Sharma

C category (Rs 10 lakh)

Mansi Joshi, Anuja Patil, Mona Meshram, Nuzhat Parveen, Sushma Verma, Punam Raut, Jemimah Rodrigues, Pooja Vastrakar, Taniya Bhatia

The annual contracts are for the period from October 2017 to September 2018. However, BCCI withheld the contract of pacer Mohammed Shami, against whom his wife Hasin Jahan has levelled allegations of cheating and illicit affairs through her Facebook page.

"The Committee of Administrators (CoA) was of the view that the performance and position of Indian Cricket need to be recognised with the fee structure comparable to the best in the world," the BCCI said.

NEWS: BCCI announces new contract system and compensation structure for Indian Cricket (Senior Men, Senior Women & Domestic Cricket)

Category A+ introduced for Senior Men
Category C introduced for Senior Women

More details on the player contracts here - https://t.co/GBNHv1wz0a pic.twitter.com/tjuvuqisGy

— BCCI (@BCCI) March 7, 2018

"The CoA recognises that the actual income of the BCCI fluctuates on an annual basis depending on the number of home matches Team India (Senior Men) plays.

"Hence, to insulate the player compensation, the CoA has sanctioned the creation of a 'Players Revenue/Compensation Equalisation Fund' (PR/CEF) to which the BCCI will contribute approximately Rs 125 crore per annum from its surplus," said the BCCI.