BCCI keep faith in old guard as Rohit, Kohli get A+ grade contracts again

The old order prevailed in the BCCI central contracts for 2025 season as the Big Two of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli continued to be in Grade A+  as the list was released on Monday. There were no major surprises really as Shreyas Iyer, in an unstoppable form in the ODIs which fetched him the ICC Player of the Month award for March, made an expected return to the list in B grade while Ishan Kishan was also brought in from the cold, albeit in C grade.

There were no new additions in the A+ category with the foursome of Rohit, Virat, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja retaining their places with an annual fee of Rs seven crores each. While the underlying principle determining a player’s place in the elite category is him playing in all three formats along with a performance to boot, Bumrah is the only player who is an automatic selection in this bracket.

While the trio of Rohit, Virat and Jadeja had called time on their international T20 careers after the T20 World Cup triumph last year, the two senior batters’ form had been abysmal in the two Test series against New Zealand at home and Down Under. There was some speculation if their white ball career could be on the exit door after India’s ICC Champions Trophy triumph in February-March – fuelling talks if they could be facing a demotion of sorts.  It was not to be in the end as the BCCI top brass also indicated they would be in the plans for the white ball set-up for at least another year.

There was some movement in Group A (Rs five cr bracket) where wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant was promoted from Group B after the international retirement of Ravi Ashwin.  The other five players in this group are K.L. Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.

There could be some argument over the in-form Shreyas and Yashasvi Jaiswal being restricted to Grade B (Rs 3 crores), but both are essentially one-format players at the moment. The same logic applies for Suryakumar Yadav, India’s T20 captain while two of India’s all format players: T20 vice-captain Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav stay on in this grade.  

Grade C (Rs one cr each), sees 19 players in the list. Ishan, after being dropped from the list as a punitive measure for not playing domestic matches, as managed to get back into the fold – clearing the decks for an international call-up sooner than later.

While 16 players were part of this grade in the previous cycle, the BCCI has increased it to 19 as there have been new additions to India’s fold in the recent months. Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akash Deep, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Varun Chakaravarthy have been included in Grade C.

Complete List of BCCI Central Contracts (2024–25)

Grade A+

Rohit Sharma; Virat Kohli; Jasprit Bumrah; Ravindra Jadeja

Grade A

Mohammed Shami; Mohammed Siraj; KL Rahul; Shubman Gill; Hardik Pandya; Rishabh Pant (Promoted)

Grade B

Suryakumar Yadav; Kuldeep Yadav; Axar Patel; Yashasvi Jaiswal; Shreyas Iyer (New)

Grade C

Rinku Singh; Tilak Varma; Ruturaj Gaikwad; Shivam Dube; Ravi Bishnoi; Washington Sundar; Mukesh Kumar; Sanju Samson; Arshdeep Singh; Rajat Patidar; Sarfaraz Khan (New); Nitish Kumar Reddy (New); Abhishek Sharma (New); Akash Deep (New); Varun Chakaravarthy (New); Harshit Rana (New); Ishan Kishan (New)

Dropped

Shardul Thakur; Avesh Khan; KS Bharat; Jitesh Sharma.