BCCI announces annual player retainership 2022-23

The BCCI announced the Annual Player Contracts, which will run from October 2022 to September 2023. Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja levelled up to join Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah in the A+ category.

KL Rahul, who was handed a Grade A contract last year, has been demoted to B. While both Axar Patel and Hardik Pandya have been promoted to Grade A, from B and C respectively. Notably, Pandya who had moved from Grade B to A in the 2020-21 cycle. Pandya returned to action after facing plenty of fitness issues that kept him on the sidelines for extended periods.

The cricket board promoted Suryakumar Yadav and Shubman Gill from Grade C to B in the latest cycle. Suryakumar Yadav received his first-ever contract in 2021-22. Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant, R Ashwin, and Mohammed Shami have retained their Grade A contract from the previous cycle. Whereas Cheteshwar Pujara and Mohammed Siraj have also received the same retainer (Grade B) as last year. A notable demotion is that of Shardul Thakur, who has slipped from Grade B to C.

New contracts for 2022-2023 cycle:

The BBCI has given a Grade C contract to Kuldeep Yadav, who was not retained in the previous cycle. While the other newly-contracted Grace C cricketers are: Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, and KS Bharat.

Shikhar Dhawan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar and Umesh Yadav have all retained their Grade C contract. While Mayank Agarwal, Hanuma Vihari, Wriddhiman Saha, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Deepak Chahar have all been dropped from the Grade C list. Also dropped is the senior duo of Ajinkya Rahane and Ishant Sharma, who both were in Grade B in 2021-22.

The biggest highlight remains the addition of Jadeja in the A+ category, which is worth INR 7 crore as opposed to INR 5 crore offered in Grade A. The Grade B and C contratcs, meanwhile, are worth INR 3 and INR 1 crore, respectively.

A+ category: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja

A category: Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel

B category: Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill

C category: Umesh Yadav, Shikhar Dhawan, Shardul Thakur, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat