Rohit, Virat still A+, Shreyas, Kishan win back BCCI contracts

Mumbai: Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan won back their India contracts after meeting the requisite criteria of returning to the domestic fold. The two players, axed in the last cycle for missing domestic cricket for unsatisfactory reasons, were among the 34 contracted players for the October 2024-September period 2025 announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Monday.

As reported by HT, there is no change in the top-most bracket with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja keeping their A+ billing. The only change in Grade A is Ravichandran Ashwin dropping out following his retirement from all forms of international cricket and Rishabh Pant getting a promotion from B to A.

Quite similarly, there is little movement in Grade B as well except for Iyer winning back his contract in this space. The limited churn among the top 15 contracted players – Rohit, Kohli and Jadeja retired from T20I cricket – is understood from this being a reflection of performances in the previous cycle (October 23-September 24).

During this period, India delivered outstanding performances in ICC white-ball events under Rohit’s captaincy, winning the 2024 T20 World Cup and finishing runners-up in the 2023 ODI World Cup. Mohammed Shami, who was sidelined by injury during the review period protected his contract for being in rehab.

A truer appraisal of performances, as Indian cricket undergoes transition would only be known when the decision makers advance stock taking by six months.

There have been internal deliberations that the next round of contracts for 2025-26 should be decided in coming October, which would consider showings from the home Test loss against New Zealand, the reversal in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as well as hits and misses from the upcoming Test series in England.

Kishan was among 19 players to be awarded Grade C contracts. Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana were new additions, having fulfilled the criteria of ‘playing a minimum of 3 Tests or 8 ODIs or 10 T20Is during the review period’. Shardul Thakur, Jitesh Sharma, KS Bharat and Avesh Khan were dropped from the contract list for non-performance.

There are no changes in remuneration amount which ranges from ( ₹7,5,3,1 crore) for Grade A+, A, B and C respectively.

WHAT’S NEW

--Rishabh Pant promoted from B to A

-- Shreyas Iyer back in Grade B

-- R Ashwin out following retirement

-- Ishan Kishan, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana added to Grade C

-- Shardul Thakur, Jitesh Sharma, KS Bharat and Avesh Khan out from Grade C