BCCI demotes Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma in annual contracts list; top tier reduced to just three players: Report

Indian cricket stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been demoted from the A+ category to the B category in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)’s annual central contracts list for the year 2025–26, according to a new report by Dainik Jagran.

Reportedly, India’s T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav has also been placed in the Group B category.

Meanwhile, the only three players in the Group A category this time are said to be India’s Test captain Shubman Gill, pacer Jasprit Bumrah, and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.

Notably, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma now represent India in only one format of the game, having retired from T20 and Test cricket respectively. The duo have been in red-hot form in the last few series, and there is a raging debate online over whether the stalwarts will be able to maintain their fitness till the next World Cup in 2027.

The previous structure stated that players in Grade A+ would earn ₹7 crore per year. Meanwhile, players in Grade A would earn ₹5 crore per year, Grade B would get ₹3 crore per year, and Grade C would get ₹1 crore per year.

With the Grade A+ tier reportedly being scrapped, it is not yet known how the pay structure would work in the new system.

Here’s a look at the full list, as reported by Dainik Jagran:

Grade A: Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja.

Grade B: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Washington Sundar, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Siraj, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer.

Grade C: 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 Sudarshan, Ravi Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Among the startling ommissions in the leaked list are players like Ishan Kishan, Sarfaraz Khan and Rajat Patidar, all of whom were placed in Grade C last year. Meanwhile, pacer Mohammed Shami who was in Grade A category last year is also ommitted from the list.

BCCI annual contracts for the women's team:

For the women's team, BCCI has selected World Cup winning captain Harmanpreet Kaur along with star players like Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma in the top tier.

Meanwhile, players like Shafali Varma and Richa Ghosh have found a place in the Group B tier.

Grade A: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma.

Grade B: Renuka Thakur, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Sneh Rana.

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