The Board of Control for Cricket in India has reshaped its central contracts system for the 2025-26 season, demoting veterans Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to Grade B after scrapping the top Grade A Plus category altogether. The new structure, covering the period from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, places Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill alongside pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah and all-format all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja as the only three players in the newly elevated top bracket, Grade A, which carries an annual retainer of five crore rupees. The announcement has reopened a debate within Indian cricket about how the board values multi-format commitment versus individual stature and legacy.
The end of the A Plus era
For several years, the A Plus grade sat above Grade A as the BCCI’s most exclusive bracket, typically reserved for a small handful of players considered indispensable across all three formats. That tier has now been eliminated entirely, with the board restructuring the system into three bands: Grade A, Grade B and Grade C. The collapse of the top category means every centrally contracted player in Indian cricket now sits within the same maximum grade, Grade A, occupied only by Gill, Bumrah and Jadeja, a group chosen in large part because they remain active or available across Tests, ODIs and T20Is, the exact multi-format criterion the BCCI has stated it wants to reward.
Why Kohli and Rohit dropped
Kohli and Rohit, both of whom retired from Test cricket last year, now feature for India only in the 50-over format, and it is this narrowed workload that the BCCI has cited as the rationale for moving them into Grade B, which carries an annual fee of three crore rupees. Under the board’s revised criteria, the top bracket is reserved for players who remain available across all formats, a bar that Kohli and Rohit no longer clear given their focus purely on ODI cricket. Joining them in Grade B is a sizeable list that includes Washington Sundar, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryakumar Yadav and Shreyas Iyer, underlining that the demotion places the two former captains alongside a broad cross-section of the current white-ball and red-ball squad rather than isolating them as a special case.
Shami left out entirely
The most striking omission from the list is Mohammad Shami, who was India’s joint-highest wicket-taker during the country’s triumphant 2025 Champions Trophy campaign but has nonetheless been excluded from central contracts altogether. His absence, alongside the dropping of Sarfaraz Khan, Rajat Patidar and Mukesh Kumar, has been read by many observers as a signal that recent form and fitness availability are being weighted more heavily than past contributions, even recent and significant ones. Sai Sudharsan, by contrast, has been added to the list, reflecting the board’s willingness to fast-track in-form younger players even as it drops contributors to a major ICC title win.
A fractured reaction
The response to the contracts list has been sharp and divided. Sections of the fan base and commentariat have criticised the decision to demote Kohli and Rohit as a snub to two of the most decorated cricketers in the nation’s history, arguing that central contracts have traditionally reflected legacy and continuing relevance to the team’s white-ball plans rather than a strict formats-played formula. Others have defended the BCCI’s logic, pointing out that the criteria are transparent and formulaic: play all three formats, sit in the top tier; play fewer, move down, regardless of reputation. The debate has also drawn in process questions, with some voices asking why Shami’s Champions Trophy exploits were not weighted more heavily in a system that ostensibly rewards recent performance as well as workload.
The women’s game holds steady
In contrast to the upheaval on the men’s side, the women’s central contracts list showed far more continuity. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma retained their places in Grade A, and were joined by Jemimah Rodrigues, who earned a promotion into the top bracket following a standout year with the bat. Renuka Thakur, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh and Sneh Rana make up Grade B, a list that reflects a settled core group heading into a busy international calendar rather than the kind of structural shake-up seen in the men’s contracts.
What the restructuring signals going forward
For Kohli and Rohit, the practical financial impact of dropping a grade is significant, but the symbolic impact may matter more: the move formalises, in contractual terms, a transition that had already been underway on the field since both players stepped back from Test cricket. For Gill, Bumrah and Jadeja, occupying the sole top tier cements their status as the core around which India’s selectors are building across formats. The broader question the new system raises is how the BCCI will handle future cases where legacy, form and format availability pull in different directions, a tension this contracts list has made explicit rather than papered over. With India’s next assignments on the horizon, including the New Zealand white-ball tour, attention will now turn to whether the contracts list proves a reliable predictor of selection, or simply a financial reflection of a transition that is already well underway.
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