The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the annual central contracts for the Indian men's team on Wednesday, February 28. Except for the top category (Grade A+), there were wholesale changes in the rest of the three grades A, B and C as the BCCI sprung a few surprises. The biggest one was the axing of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan, which generated the most buzz given both were part of India's World Cup squad. Iyer in particular, scored over 500 runs in the tournament and is even showing up in Ranji Trophy for Mumbai whether earlier against Andhra or now in the semi-finals.
A total of 30 players were offered the central contract for the 2023-24 season apart from the fast bowling contracts in a first from BCCI to the likes of Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Vidwath Kaverappa, Yash Dayal and Umran Malik. Here's a look at all the changes in the contract list from the last year-
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There were as many as 11 new names in the BCCI's annual contract list. Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajat Patidar, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Mukesh Kumar and Yashasvi Jaiswal were the 11 players who received the annual central contract for the first time. While 10 of them were in Grade C, Jaiswal was the only one of them to get straight into Grade B probably because he is a sure-shot starter in a couple of formats for India.
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Iyer and Kishan as mentioned above were the notable absentees. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was another big name not in any of the categories which means the veteran bowler might not be seen in and around the Indian team squads in the near future unless a terrific IPL season.
Cheteshwar Pujara, who hasn't played a Test since the WTC final and left-handed opener Shikhar Dhawan too were shown the door since they hadn't played many games for the national side in the last year or so. Umesh Yadav and Deepak Hooda were the remaining two names who were part of the contract list till last year but were dropped this year.
Promotion and demotion
Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill and KL Rahul were three names who earned a promotion from Grade B to Grade A while the rest of the players kept their places in their respective categories. Kuldeep Yadav was the only one to be promoted from Grade C to Grade B. Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel, on the other hand, dropped a grade from A to B.
BCCI annual central contract list 2023/24
Grade A+ - Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja
Grade A - R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya
Grade B - Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal
Grade C - Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan and Rajat Patidar
