Rising stars Siraj and Gill earn BCCI contracts

The BCCI revealed a 28-player contract list for the men’s team for the period between October 2020 and September 2021 on Thursday, with Siraj, Gill and spinner Axar Patel the three new names in the group.

Patel returns to the contract list for the first time since 2017-18.

Siraj and Gill were crucial to India’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy triumph in Australia, while Patel has shone in the Test arena since debuting against England this year.

There are four groups in the BCCI’s contract list, with 'A+' players on INR 7 crore retainers, 'A' players INR 5 crore, 'B' players INR 3 crore, and 'C' players INR 1 crore.

Once again, captain Virat Kohli, opening batter Rohit Sharma and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah have all been classed A+ players.

Ten players make up the 'A' group, with Hardik Pandya the lone new name among them after being in the 'B' group last year.

Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur and Mayank Agarwal make up the ‘B’ group, paid INR three crore, with the remaining 10 contracted players in the 'C' group.

India contract list
A+: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah
A: Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya
B: Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal
C: Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj