Tezzbuzz Desk- The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has released the central contract list of players for the 2025–26 season. This time a total of 30 players have been included in the list, but the biggest change is that BCCI has completely abolished the A+ category.

Now players are divided into only three grades—A, B and C. In this, 3 players have been included in Grade-A, 11 players in Grade-B and 16 players in Grade-C.

BCCI has kept current ODI and Test captain Shubman Gill, star fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah and experienced all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja in Grade-A. These three players will be the highest annual retainer earners from the board.

Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who were previously included in the A+ category, have been kept in Grade-B this time. Both the veteran players have retired from T20 International and Test cricket and are now playing only the ODI format, which has affected their grading.

Apart from these, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Mohammed Siraj, Shreyas Iyer and Washington Sundar have been included in Grade-B.

Many young and rising stars have got place in Grade-C. It includes names like Tilak Verma, Rinku Singh, Sanju Samson, Akshar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakraborty, Dhruv Jurail, Abhishek Sharma, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sai Sudarshan. This indicates that BCCI is focusing on strengthening the future team.

BCCI has also declared the central contract list of the women’s team.

Captain Harmanpreet Kaur, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma have been kept in Grade-A.
Grade-B includes Renuka Thakur, Shefali Verma, Richa Ghosh and Sneh Rana.
Many young players have got a chance in Grade-C, which includes names like Yastika Bhatia, Harleen Deol, Radha Yadav and Kashvi Gautam.

BCCI’s clear message: Performance is priority

Eliminating the A+ category and giving importance to format based performance clearly shows that BCCI is now making the current form, fitness and consistency the basis of the contract.