BCCI eliminates A+ central contract category: What this means for Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah & Indian Cricket?

BCCI scraps the A+ central contract tier, citing lack of all-format players. BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia explains impact on Kohli, Rohit and others.

Kohli and Rohit to be removed from BCCI Central Contract A+ (Image Credit: BCCI)

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are all set to scrap the Grade A+ category from the central contract ahead of the upcoming season. Secretary Davajit Saikia has opened up about the category and how the players who used to be a part of them are ineligible now. Earlier, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja were placed in the Grade A+ category since they played in all the three formats.

Now that Rohit, Kohli, and Jadeja are playing mostly one format, along with Bumrah whose plays in T20Is and Tests due to workload management, BCCI have no other option but to scrape the category. The BCCI Secretary also mentioned that no other play qualifies to fit into the category.

“The plan will go ahead very soon. We are removing one category because the players who were eligible for the A-plus category are now playing just one of the three formats. The criteria we have set to qualify a player for A-plus are not being fulfilled,” Saikia told Sportstar.

Also read: India vs New Zealand, 3rd T20I: Preview, H2H stats, when and where to watch in India?

“Some of the players who were in that A-plus bracket have decided not to play all three formats. Therefore, there are not enough players remaining to qualify and fulfil the eligibility criteria. A one-format player will not be eligible for A-plus, so that’s why we had to take a call. There is no heartburn,” he added.

Jasprit Bumrah to not get fee cut

In the current setup, Jasprit Bumrah is the oly player who is eligible to play in all the formats but due to the T20 World Cup 2026, the board is keeping him away from the ODIs. Hence, Bumrah is most likely to retain his salary and not go through a paycut. Meanwhile, the other players will face a salary cut and will be demoted in the category list.

BCCI Central Contract list 2024-2025

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

Grade A: Rishabh Pant, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya

Grade B: Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal

Grade 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

Where to watch IND vs NZ matches?

Cricket fans in India can watch the India vs New Zealand matches from January 21 online on JioHotstar, via OTTplay Premium.

Also read: Former India bowler blames Test series loss against SA on Kohli-Rohit transition, makes eye-opening claim

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