The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) recently announced the annual central contracts for the senior men’s Indian team. While there were quite a few deserved promotions – Ravindra Jadeja, Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel – some of the players got demoted too – KL Rahul . Apart from those, the likes of Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh and Deepak Hooda among others got their maiden annual BCCI contract. The contracts were not only good news for the cricketers financially but also security that they are in and around the national side.
It was a huge upgrade for Ravindra Jadeja, who went from Grade A (INR 5 crore) to Grade A+ (INR 7 crore), which only had Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah for the last couple of years. While the likes of Samson, Hooda, Arshdeep, Ishan Kishan, Kuldeep Yadav (return after a gap of one year) and KS Bharat will all earn INR 1 crore.
Do you know that the amount the players in Grade C will be earning is still more than what the Pakistan players in the top bracket earn? Yes, the players in the top bracket (red-ball and white-ball) for Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) earn 1.25 million PKR per month (which translates to INR 43.44 Lakh per year). This is 12 times less than what the likes of Kohli, Rohit and Bumrah earn and even lesser than half of what the likes of Samson will earn in Grade C. Apart from Babar, Mohammad Rizwan, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi and Imam-ul-Haq are in the top bracket of red and white-ball contract.
As far as the demotions are concerned, Rahul, who was stripped of vice-captaincy in ODIs and Tests recently has been demoted from Grade A (INR 5 crore) to Grade B (INR 3 crore) while Dhawan, who has lost his place from the side in all three formats stayed in Grade C. Shardul Thakur too was demoted from Grade B to Grade C.
