BCCI Central Contract: BCCI has announced its central contract for the 2025-2026 season. The biggest thing about this contract is that now there will be only three categories in it. After this change, BCCI has abolished A+ grade. After this, now A grade is the top category.

Only three players in A grade

Only three players are included in A grade in the form of Test team and ODI team captain Shubhman Gill, fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja. Gill has been promoted to the central contract, while Bumrah and Jadeja have retained their top positions. Whereas Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been demoted and included in B category.

Kohli-Rohit’s demotion

Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were earlier in A+, but after retiring from T20 and Test cricket, both the players play only in ODIs. In such a situation, both these players have been included in B grade. T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav is also in this category.

Players included in B grade

Apart from Kohli-Rohit and Surya, there are Shreyas Iyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul and Washington Sundar in B grade. In this way 11 players are part of B grade. While Iyer has returned to B grade, Sundar has been promoted from C to B grade.

Which players are in C grade?

The names of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravi Bishnoi, Sai Sudarshan, Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Varun Chakraborty, Harshit Rana, Dhruv Jurel, Akashdeep, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh, Sanju Samson, Shivam Dubey, Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma and Akshar Patel are included in this grade. That means 16 players have been included in this grade.

There is no place for Ishan Kishan

Ishan Kishan, who will play in T20 World Cup 2026, is out of this contract. There is more surprise about Ishaan’s name because he not only made a comeback in the team but also impressed everyone with his strong batting in the series with New Zealand. After this, he has also been given the responsibility to open with Abhishek Sharma in place of Sanju in the T20 World Cup. Ishaan was not a part of the team last season, which is considered to be a major reason for not being included in this central contract. In such a situation, it is possible that he may get a central contract in the next season. Get a place in.

4 players including Shami-Sarfaraz are out

Also, Mohammed Shami, who has not played any international match since Champions Trophy 2025, has also been kept out of the central contract by BCCI. After this decision of BCCI, questions are being raised on Shami’s career too. Apart from this, Rajat Patidar, Mukesh Kumar and Sarfaraz Khan have also not been able to make a place in the central contract. These players have not played for Team India for a long time.