Striking the perfect chord? Making sense of BCCI’s annual contracts Premium

BCCI announces annual player contracts for Indian men's team, highlighting importance of financial security and player well-being.

After weeks of speculation – they will, sure, but when will they? – the Board of Control for Cricket in India announced the annual player contracts for the Indian men’s team for the 2024-25 season this Monday. These contracts run between October 1 of last year and September 30 of 2025 – the 34 names in the four categories were revealed exactly halfway through the term – and there are no real surprises as such, though it can be argued that some deserved a better standing than has officially been accorded.

The annual contracts are an absolute must, an insurance against fickle form but also against the threat of injuries that are such an integral part of a professional sportsperson’s kitbag. The BCCI retainers have been in vogue for more than two decades now, owing their origin to the efforts undertaken by, among others, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and then skipper Sourav Ganguly. Currently, players are grouped in four categories — A+ (annual retainer of ₹7 crore), A (₹5 crore), B (₹3 crore) and C (₹1 crore). These are effectively, for convenience, annual salaries that are above and beyond match fees and prize money.

The legends of the past held the view that for the sake of financial security of the players whose shelf life is supremely limited compared to highly qualified professionals in less strenuous physical endeavours, it was imperative that the graded payment structure based on seniority and performance be introduced so that one didn’t have to take the field with added pressure riding on their shoulders. Given the riches that the BCCI is able to dip into, it was a no-brainer that players needed to be treated as human beings and assets rather than money-making entities. The fact that retainer amounts have burgeoned to the levels that they currently enjoy is further indication of the Indian board’s commitment to ensuring the physical and mental well-being of its ‘employees’, largely because of whom sponsorship and broadcast monies flow into their treasury.

This year’s list has 34 players, an increase by four from the 30 players who were part of the retainer pool for the previous season. Much of the influx is in Grade C, with several new entrants including Varun Chakaravarthy, Nitish Kumar, Abhishek Sharma, Harshit Rana and Akash Deep, who have all played a great deal of international cricket in the last several months, and with no limited success.

Interestingly, also included in this category is feisty wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan, whose last international appearance came nearly a year and a half back, against Australia in at T20 game in Guwahati in November 2023.

Kishan was left out of the contracts’ list last year, alongside Shreyas Iyer, the right-hand batter from Mumbai who is leading Punjab Kings in IPL 2025. While there was no official word on the two omissions, it was an open secret why they missed out.

Kishan returned home from South Africa in December 2023, midway through an all-format tour, citing the need to take a break, which is fine because that is entirely the individual’s perspective. But when he chose to ignore the BCCI’s directive to play domestic cricket while continuing to work on his cricket at a private academy in Vadodara in preparation for IPL 2024, he put the deciding authorities in an impossible position, just like Shreyas did.