In a recent development, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has unveiled the BCCI Central contracts for 2025-26 season, where stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been demoted to Group B.

The Indian sports governing body has released the list of 30 men and 21 women were announced on Monday. Meanwhile, the BCCI had removed the category of A+ grade and only three cricketers – Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja have been placed in Group A.

Meanwhile, the Grade B category will include Washington Sundar, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj and Hardik Pandya.

On the other hand, the Grade C category will include Axar Patel, 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.

The BCCI has not yet officially declared that the payment structure for 2025-26 will be different from the Central Contracts for 2024-25.

As per the BCCI Central Contract 2024-25, players in Grade A would receive INR 5 crore annually, while players in Grade B would receive INR 3 crore, and players in Grade C would get INR 1 crore.

Players in Grade A+ (Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja) used to receive INR 7 crore.

As of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, their retirements from Tests and T20Is effectively became one-format players, and they couldn’t be retained in the top category.

Meanwhile, 21 cricketers have been named in BCCI Central contracts for 2025-26. Veterans like Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma and Jemimah Rodrigues have been named the Grade A.

The cycle for the new contract is based on performance and volume of games played during the preceding season.

BCCI Central Contracts for 2025-26

Men’s Category

• Grade A – Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja
• Grade B – Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer.
• Group C – Axar Patel, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Verma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudharsan, Ravi Bishnoi

Women’s Category

• Grade A – Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma
• Grade B – Renuka Thakur, Sneh Rana, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh
• Grade C – Radha Yadav, Amanjot Kaur, Pratika Rawal, Kranti Gaud, Uma Chetry, Arundhati Reddy, Sree Charani, Yastika Bhatia, Harleen Deol, Kashvee Gautam, G Kamalini, Vaishnavi Sharma, Tejal Hasabnis