Currently the stalwarts of Indian cricket, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, are enjoying their prime in ODI cricket and are likely to undergo a pay cut and suffer a huge dip in their central contract. As per the last Central Contract announced, Ro-KO was given their A+ category given their availability in both tests and ODIs.
Currently, Rohit, Virat, Ravindra Jadeja, and Jasprit Bumrah enjoy the elite central contract. being the all-format players. However, a report from ANI speculated about the demotion of Ro-Ko.
The duo, along with Ravindra Jadeja, had announced T20 retirement after winning the 2024 T20 Men's World Cup. Currently the ambassador for the same in 2026, Rohit Sharma, along with Virat Kohli, stepped down from the Test cricket before the Anderson-Tendulkar Series.
Normally, Test cricket and ODI cricket are always looked upon as higher categories than T20 cricket. Earlier it was apprehended that, with Ro-Ko stepping down from Test cricket, they might be demoted to the A category which is 2 crore subtraction from the INR 7 crore pay scale of the A+ category .
Ravindra Jadeja was unlikely to go through the shuffles as per the previous AGM meeting held late December in 2025. However, as per a recent proceeding, the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel has decided to abandon the entire A+ category. And the proposal is awaiting approval from the Board.
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Who was placed where in the previous setup?
The A+ category, ironically, does not exist in women's cricket, and the A category is enjoyed by the premium players. As per the Men's cricket, A category has the senior pros of the team—Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, and Rishabh Pant. These named are getting INR 5 corer annualy.
Grade B includes those seniors who are mostly and strictly not in the all-format map, for whatever reasons. They are the T20I captain and vice captain, Suryakumar Yadav and Axar Patel; the vice captain of the ODI side, Shreyas Iyer; the opener of both the Test and ODI, Yashasvi Jaiswal; and the spinner, Kuldeep Yadav.
Grade C has 19 players who mostly represent India in one format only. They are, Varun Chakaravarthy, Sanju Samson, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Akash Deep, Sarfaraz Khan, Tilak Verma, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi, Ishan Kishan, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Abhishek Sharma, Rajat Patidar, Mukesh Kumar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel and Shivam Dube.
The BCCI revises its player contract categories annually, moving cricketers up or down the list while also adding or dropping names based on their role, status and workload across formats. At regular intervals, the board also revises the retainer fees.
With the structure now reduced to just three categories, the retainers are expected to see a significant rise, although a final decision will be taken at the BCCI’s next Apex Council meeting, according to the report.
