By BV Swagath
The BCCI announced its Annual Contracts for a total of 37 players. The players are divided into three Grades – Grade A which has nine players, Grade B with 8 players and Grade C with 20 players. The Grade A players are paid a contract amount of Rs 1 crore each. Grade B get Rs. 50 lakhs each while Grade C players get Rs. 25 lakhs each. The Grades are based on the players’ performance as well as their experience in International matches.
Some of the notable changes in this season’s contracts are the rise of R Ashwin from Group B to Group A, the demotion of Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma from Group A to Group B. Apart from these, speedsters Sreesanth and Jaidev Unadkat who failed to keep their places in the Indian team have been omitted completely from the Annual contracts.
Grade A: ` 1 crore each
1. Sachin Tendulkar
2. M S Dhoni
3. Zaheer Khan
4. Virender Sehwag
5. Gautam Gambhir
6. Suresh Raina
7. Yuvraj Singh
8. Virat Kohli
9. R Ashwin
Grade B: ` 50 lakhs each
1. Harbhajan Singh
2. Ishant Sharma
3. Pragyan Ojha
4. Rohit Sharma
5. Cheteshwar Pujara
6. Ajinkya Rahane
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Umesh Yadav
Grade C: ` 25 lakhs each
1. Ravindra Jadeja
2. Amit Mishra
3. Vinay Kumar
4. Munaf Patel
5. Abhimanyu Mithun
6. Murali Vijay
7. Shikhar Dhawan
8. Wriddhiman Saha
9. Parthiv Patel
10. Manoj Tiwary
11. S Badrinath
12. Piyush Chawla
13. Dinesh Karthik
14. Rahul Sharma
15. Varun Aaron
16. Abhinav Mukund
17. Ashok Dinda
18. Yusuf Pathan
19. Praveen Kumar
20. L Balaji
