BCCI Central Contracts: Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli downgraded to Grade B

Top contracts have been given for Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has downgraded Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to Grade B in the new Central Contracts announced on Monday (February 9), while also abolishing the prevailing A+ category carrying a retainership fee of Rs 7 crore.

The star batting duo currently play only the One-day Internationals.

The BCCI awarded central contract to 30 men and 21 women cricketers classified in group A, B and C.

It is presumed that A+ was a gradation that was introduced by the erstwhile Committee of Administrators at the behest of former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

It was meant for excellence across three formats and all these years, only four people qualified -- Kohli, Rohit, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah -- in that category.

But, with three of the four retiring from one or two formats, the BCCI did not want just Bumrah to be kept in A+ as the national selection committee is still not convinced that Test and ODI skipper Shubman Gill is an all-format certainty after being dropped from the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2026 squad.

With A+ being done away, in the earlier seasons, group A was valued at Rs 5 crore, group B at Rs 3 crore annually, and group C at Rs 1 crore.

With Rohit and Kohli retiring from Tests and T20Is and playing only ODIs, as BCCI per criteria, they could not have been retained in the top-most category.

Among the top men's players retained in Grade A include Gill, Bumrah, and Jadeja while the women' top players include Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, and Deepti Sharma.|

(With BCCI Media inputs)