Out-of-favour duo Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were recently excluded from the annual player retainership list for the 2023-24 season, with the BCCI saying in a statement that the two were not considered for the annual contracts. The two players had been under the scanner of the BCCI after skipping Ranji Trophy matches for their respective domestic sides. In the 2022-23 central contracts of the BCCI, Iyer was in Grade B while Kishan was placed in Grade C. While Iyer received an annual fee of Rs 3 crore besides his match fees, Kishan got Rs 1 crore.
After from the monetary loss, both players will not have full access the National Cricket Academy (NCA) facilities, as well as BCCI’s insurance cover.
While there has been a lot of discussion regard Kishan and Iyer’s contract terminations, there were some notable gainers in the central contracts list.
How many players have been promoted?
Batters KL Rahul and Shubman Gill and pacer Mohammed Siraj have been the notable gainers from the annual retainership. The trio has been promoted from Grade B in the 2022/23 contract to A in 2023/24. Gill, Rahul and Siraj will now earn Rs 5 crore as compared to Rs 3 crore from last season.
Spinner Kuldeep Yadav, on the other hand, has been promoted from Grade C to Grade B. He will earn Rs 3 crore compared to Rs 1 crore last season.
Besides these, the BCCI added 11 fresh faces to the central contracts list. Yashasvi Jaiswal is the notable name in list, having made his debut across formats last year.
Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan and Rajat Patidar have all been added to Grade C, along with Jaiswal.
These 11 players will earn Rs 1 crore each from the BCCI.
Addition of fast bowling contracts
In a historic move, the BCCI also recommended five players for fast bowling contracts. Akash Deep, who made his debut in the 4th Test against England last week headlines the list, which also features the likes of Vijaykumar Vyshak (Karnataka), Umran Malik (Jammu and Kashmir), Yash Dayal (Uttar Pradesh) and Vidwath Kaverappa (Karnataka).
Umran has represented India in the past in white-ball cricket, while the others are all uncapped.
Meanwhile, India captain Rohit Sharma, star batter Virat Kohli, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and pacer Jasprit Bumrah have all been retained Grade A+ bracket. They will earn Rs 7 crore from the contract.
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