Virat, Rohit, Bumrah retain Grade A contracts

All-rounder Hardik Pandya gets Grade A contract, worth Rs 5 crore, while rookies Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj bag maiden central contracts, worth Rs 1 crore, in Grade C.

India captain Virat Kohli, his white-ball deputy Rohit Sharma and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah retained their top bracket contracts, worth Rs 7 crore each, even as some fast-rising youngsters were also rewarded by the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Thursday.

A total of 28 cricketers were awarded central contracts in four categories.

All-rounder Hardik Pandya is one of the notable promotions to Grade A, which is worth Rs 5 crore, while rookies Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj got their maiden central contracts, worth Rs 1 crore, in Grade C.

Among the demotions, pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar was dropped to Grade B, which is worth Rs 3 crore, while Kedar Jadhav was dropped for good.

Check out the BCCI's annual contracts:

GRADE A+ (Rs 7 crore): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah.

GRADE A (Rs 5 crore): Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya.

GRADE B (Rs 3 crore): Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal.

GRADE C (Rs 1 crore): Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari , Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj.