The star trio of India captain Virat Kohli, his white-ball deputy Rohit Sharma and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah retained their top bracket BCCI contracts, worth Rs 7 crore each, even as some fast-rising youngsters were also rewarded by the Board on Thursday.
A total of 28 cricketers were awarded central contracts in four categories.
All-rounder Hardik Pandya is one of the notable promotions to Grade A, which is worth Rs 5 crore, while rookies Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj have got their maiden central contracts worth Rs 1 crore in Grade C.
Among the demotions, pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar has dropped to Grade B, which is worth Rs 3 crore, while Kedar Jadhav has been dropped for good.
The list of BCCI's annual contracts:
GRADE A+ (Rs 7 crore): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah.
GRADE A (Rs 5 crore): R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya.
GRADE B (Rs 3 crore): Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal.
GRADE C (Rs 1 crore): Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari , Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj.
