BCCI demote Pujara, Rahane, Ishant, Hardik, Dhawan in central contracts

Hardik Pandya and Shikhar Dhawan have been demoted from Grade A and Grade C in the BCCI's annual retainership contracts, which is issued to 27 players for 2022.

Pandya has not been selected in the squad since India's ill-fated outing at the ICC T20 World Cup last year. Dhawan, having fallen out of favour in both Test matches and T20Is, now features only in ODIs.

Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, and Ishant Sharma have all been demoted to Grade B. None of the three made it to the squad for the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka. Wriddhiman Saha, 37, has been downgraded to Grade C, worth INR 1 crore.

Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Rohit Sharma continue to remain in the Grade A+ category, which will fetch them INR 7 crores. 

R. Ashwin, K.L. Rahul, and Rishabh Pant, among others, have managed to retain their Grade A contracts, while Axar Patel and Mohammed Siraj have been promoted to Grade B. 

Grade A+ (INR 7 crores): Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah

Grade A (INR 5 crores): KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant, Ravichandran Ashwin

Grade B (INR 3 crores): Cheteshwar Pujara, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Ishant Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane

Grade C (INR 1 crore): Deepak Chahar, Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal, Washington Sundar