New Delhi: Former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and off-spinner R Ashwin were relegated to second-tier as BCCI announced new player contracts on Wednesday.
Introducing an A+ category in the central contracts, the BCCI picked only five players in the list, including skipper Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah. The A+ category will ensure them annual contracts of Rs seven crore each.
In category A, are Dhoni, Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Wridhhiman Saha, who will get an annual contract of Rs five crore.
Category B features KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma and Dinesh Karthik and will get contract worth Rs three crore.
Similarly, Grade C will have Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel and Jayant Yadav, who will get contract worth Rs one crore.
The annual contracts are for the period from October 2017 to September 2018.
