The BCCI on Monday announced the core contracts for the 2025-26 season and several familiar names were omitted, Mohammad ShamiRajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Mukesh Kumar and Ishan Kishan Despite being part of the previous cycle, it was missed. The board granted annual reservation to 30 men’s cricketers and 21 women’s cricketers, dividing them into A, B and C groups. Notably, the A+ category has been eliminated, a move that reshapes contract grades.
Senior backbone Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma Being placed in Group B, relegation was largely expected as they retired from Tests and T20Is respectively, effectively making them single-format players. By current standards, given last season’s performance and number of games, they no longer qualify for the top flight. Shubman Gill finds himself in the top pay grade for the first time in his career as the two-format skipper has been retained along with Group A Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja. While the BCCI has not officially disclosed the retention amount, Group A was previously valued at Rs 5 crore per annum, Group B and Group C at Rs 3 crore and Rs 1 crore respectively before the A+ category was scrapped. The decision to remove the A+ stems from the fact that Bumrah is now the only player to remain an automatic selection across all formats. The category was introduced during the COA era to cater for excellence across all formats and earlier included only Kohli, Rohit, Jadeja and Bumrah. The men’s roster has been trimmed from 34 players to 30 and Shami’s omission is seen as a strong signal that he may be left out of the selectors’ immediate plans. Kishan, Mukesh and Sarfaraz were also dropped for not playing a single international match during the evaluation period. Although Kishan has returned in the T20I set-up, this return belongs to a new cycle. Notable among them is Sai Sudharsan, the only newcomer on the senior men’s contract roster. For women, Harmanpreet Kaur, Mandana and Deepti Sharma retained their place in Group A, while Jemima Rodriguez earned promotion on the back of her impressive performance at the World Cup.
