Former India captains Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been placed in Grade B of the BCCI’s central contracts for the 2025–26 season, marking a shift in the board’s grading structure and reflecting their current involvement across formats.
Both Kohli and Rohit now feature in only one of the three international formats. Their downgrade follows the BCCI’s decision to do away with the A+ category that existed in the previous contract cycle.
Only three players have been placed in the top Grade A bracket for the upcoming season — Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill, fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah and allrounder Ravindra Jadeja. The contracts will be valid from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026.
Gill emerges as the biggest gainer under the revised structure after taking over the Test and ODI captaincy from Rohit Sharma last year. Bumrah continues to lead India’s pace attack, while Jadeja remains the most experienced active Test cricketer in the side.
Last season, Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah and Jadeja were all part of the now-scrapped A+ category.
Grade B includes T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav, Test vice-captain Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammed Siraj.
The reshuffle suggests that the BCCI has effectively merged the earlier Grades A and B into a single middle tier, with Washington Sundar among those to benefit from the change.
Among the notable adjustments, Axar Patel has been placed in Grade C despite being a regular in white-ball formats and currently serving as vice-captain of India’s T20 World Cup squad.
The men’s contracts list has been reduced from 34 players last season to 30, with no new names added. Senior fast bowler Mohammed Shami, along with Sarfaraz Khan, Rajat Patidar and Mukesh Kumar, have been excluded from the latest list.
The BCCI has not disclosed the financial terms associated with the three contract categories.
Grade C features a mix of established names and emerging players, including 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 Sudharsan, Ravi Bishnoi and Ruturaj Gaikwad.
IANS
