Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma demoted, Shubman Gill promoted in BCCI annual contracts
India Today
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Monday announced the Annual Player Contracts for Team India Senior Men and Senior Women for the 2025–26 season, which runs from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026.
India's premier fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, ODI and Test captain Shubman Gill, and veteran all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja are the only three players to be awarded Grade A central contracts for the 2025-26 season by the BCCI. In a significant restructuring, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has scrapped the A+ category, making Grade A the highest tier in the revised central contracts list. BCCI) announces the Annual Player Contracts for Team India Senior Men (BCCI Photo)
Former captains Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who now feature only in the ODI format, have been placed in the Grade B category. The two modern-day greats were earlier part of the top A+ bracket but have been downgraded as they currently play just one of the three international formats.
India’s T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav has also been included in Category B of the BCCI annual contract list. He is joined by KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Siraj, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Shreyas Iyer.
Category C comprises Axar Patel, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudarshan, Ravi Bishnoi, and Ruturaj Gaikwad.
Meanwhile, senior pacer Mohammed Shami has been dropped from the BCCI’s annual contract list. Shami has not played a single international match for India since the 2025 Champions Trophy final against New Zealand.
Notably, Ishan Kishan does not feature in any of the categories, raising questions over his exclusion from the annual contract list. This comes despite his selection for the T20 World Cup and an impressive showing against New Zealand in recent matches.
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