On Thursday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)  announced the list of annual contracts for the Indian  team players.The BCCI has made some  changes to the team members in the contract list for the 2022-23 season.

The players are being given contracts  on their previous year’s results . Some of the biggest names of the Indian team , will now be paid  less in terms of their annual contract .

The Indian Cricket board provides four grades of salary to its players under the central contract list .  The highest is – Grade A+ under which the players are given an annual remuneration of 7 Crores. While Grade A gets 5 Crores, and Grade B and Grade C receive INR 3 Crores and INR 1 Crore respectively from the BCCI.

Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara have been demoted to Grade B from grade A due to their poor performance in the test matches match. Their poor form has forced the Indian selectors to look for their replacements. Both the dropped from the series against Sr Lanka. Hanuma Vihari replaces Cheteshwar Pujara which Ajinkya Rahane is replaced by Shreyas Iyer.

Meanwhile, the biggest downgrading has been faced by the  all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who has been out of the Indian squad due to his poor fitness. Pandya has been demoted to Grade C  from Grade A contract list.

Grade A+: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah

Grade A: Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and Mohammed Shami

Grade B: Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Ishant Sharma.

Grade C: Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hanuma Vihari, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Shikhar Dhawan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal.