Cliff Notes – Shreyas and Kishan back, Pant gets upgrade
- Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan have returned to the BCCI’s central contracts list for 2024-25 after being omitted last year due to unavailability for domestic cricket.
- Rishabh Pant has been promoted from Grade B to Grade A, having made a successful comeback following a serious injury, while the top tier remains unchanged apart from the removal of R Ashwin.
- New entrants in the contracts list include several players in Grade C, while Shardul Thakur, KS Bharat, Avesh Khan, and Jitesh Sharma have been dropped from the previous year’s list.
BCCI contracts: Shreyas and Kishan back, Pant gets upgrade
Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan are back on the BCCI’s central contracts list for 2024-25 after being left out of it the previous time.
The top tier of the contracts (A+) has four players – Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja. That’s unchanged apart from R Ashwin, who retired from international cricket late last year, being dropped. Rohit, Kohli and Jadeja have been retained in the top category despite retiring from T20Is after India won the T20 World Cup in June last year.
Rishabh Pant has been promoted from Grade B to Grade A, which also has Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya and Mohammed Shami.
Pant had previously been in Grade A – for the 2022-23 season – but was moved down to Grade B after not playing for over a year following a horrific car crash in December 2022. He returned to play IPL 2024 and has since been part of all formats for India – he’s played ten Tests, one ODI and ten T20Is since then – and has returned to Grade A.
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Iyer, meanwhile, is part of Grade B along with Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal and India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav, while Kishan has been added to Grade C.
The new entrants in the contracts’ list – all currently in Grade C – are Nitish Kumar Reddy, Dhruv Jurel, Abhishek Sharma, Sarfaraz Khan, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana.
Shardul Thakur, KS Bharat, Avesh Khan and Jitesh Sharma, who were all in the Grade C list – the lowest of the retainers – last year, have been dropped.
The BCCI did not mention the amounts for the four contract categories, but ESPNcricinfo understands that they are likely to be INR 7 crore (A+), INR 5 crore (A), INR 3 crore (B) and INR 1 crore (C).
BCCI central contracts ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Iyer and Kishan had lost their contracts last year after having made themselves unavailable for the domestic season. While Iyer had informed the Mumbai cricket Association that he had been suffering from back spasms, Kishan had chosen to play the DY Patil T20 tournament instead of making a return to domestic cricket for Jharkhand. Kishan, too, returned to playing domestic cricket later, turning out for Jharkhand across formats in the 2024-25 season.
The BCCI had asked in a statement at the time that “all athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team”.
Since then, Shreyas has had an excellent run across formats. He has been part of five title wins since March 2024: The IPL win with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as captain aside, he won the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy, the 2024-25 Irani Cup, and the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy titles with Mumbai. He was also a key member of India’s title-winning Champions Trophy team, a tournament in which he finished as the second-highest run-getter with 243 runs in five innings.
Varun, among the new entrants in the list, has risen through the ranks in the past year. He made a comeback in the T20I series against Bangladesh last year and has been a regular in the format since. He also went on to make his ODI debut last year and played in the Champions Trophy as well, where he picked up nine wickets in three matches. Rana, too, made his debut in all three formats recently and played in two matches at the Champions Trophy.
List of contracted players for 2024-25
Category A+ – Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja
Category A – Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant
Category B – Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer
Category C – Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana