Pujara, Jadeja, Vijay Promoted To Grade 'A' By Indian Cricket Board, Salary Hike For Players

Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja and Murali Vijay were on Wednesday promoted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to Grade A after the Committee of Administrators (CoA) finalised the annual players contracts for the period starting from October 2016. Pujara and Vijay were in Grade B last year, while Jadeja was demoted to Grade C in 2015-16 after his poor run in the international cricket. The match fees for Tests, One Day Internationals (ODIs) and Twenty20 Internationals were also hiked.

Grade A - Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, R Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, M Vijay (Annual retainer amount - INR 2 Cr) pic.twitter.com/QFOKeSA9Zj

— BCCI (@BCCI) March 22, 2017

Match Fee enhancement will be effective from Oct 1, 2016 - Rs 15 lakhs per Test, Rs 6 lakhs per ODI and Rs 3 lakhs for T20I will be paid pic.twitter.com/XIN29exPan

— BCCI (@BCCI) March 22, 2017

The CoA also hiked the annual retainer amounts for all the categories. Grade A players will now be paid Rs 2 crore per annum, Grade B will be paid Rs 1 crore per annum and the Grade C players will get Rs 50 lakhs per annum, which is double the amounts paid in the earlier years, a BCCI release said.

KL Rahul and Wriddhiman Saha, who were in Grade C last year, have been promoted to Grade B, while top-order batsman Shikhar Dhawan has been demoted to Grade C following his poor form in international cricket.

The match fee enhancements will be effective from Oct 1, 2016. Tests will have fees of Rs. 15 lakh per match, while the fees for ODIs and T20 Internationals will be Rs. 6 lakh per ODI and Rs. 3 lakh respectively.

While seniors like Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra have found place in Grade B and C respectively, the biggest name missing is Suresh Raina, who till recently was a permanent member of the limited overs fixtures.

Young Rishabh Pant is a part of Grade C contract. Raina had in fact played after October 1, 2016 but is not there in the 32-member list.

Harbhajan Singh and Gautam Gambhir are not in the list as they have played before the said date, from which the contracts are to come into effect.

The decision was taken in consultation with the national selection committee.

Grade A: Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, R Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay.

Grade B: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Wriddhiman Saha, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuvraj Singh.

Grade C: Shikhar Dhawan, Ambati Rayudu, Amit Mishra, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Hardik Pandya, Ashish Nehra, Kedar Jadhav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Parthiv Patel, Jayant Yadav, Mandeep Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni, Shardul Thakur, Rishabh Pant.

Meanwhile, Sandhya Rajesh Sawant, wife of Late Rajesh Sawant who unfortunately passed away while he was on official assignment with the India Under 19 team, was handed a cheque of Rs 15 lakhs, in recognition of his services to Indian Cricket.

(With inputs from PTI)