Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya get demoted in BCCI central contracts

Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Wriddhiman Saha have all been demoted in the BCCI’s annual retainership contracts. TOI had reported on Jan 26 that all of them are set to get demotions. While Ishant, Rahane and Pujara have been put in Grade B from Grade A, Saha has been moved to Grade C from B.

Grade A+ is worth Rs 7 crore while A, B and C are Rs 5 crore, Rs 3 crore and Rs 1 crore respectively. Another notable demotion has been Hardik Pandya who too has moved to Grade B from A. Interestingly, all four Test specialists have been recently dropped by the selectors while Pandya has not been considered for selection since the abysmal T20 World Cup in Oct-Nov.

Shikhar Dhawan, who only plays ODI cricket now, has been given a Grade B contract. Umesh Yadav too has been moved down to Grade C. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has also seen a hot and cold year, has moved down to Grade C.

As reported by TOI, Axar Patel and Mohammad Siraj have been promoted to B from C. Shreyas Iyer too has earned a Grade B contract. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah have retained their places as Grade A+ players while Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Shami and R Ashwin have stayed in Grade A.

BCCI sources told TOI that the team management and selectors are keen on investing heavily in the next generation of players. Kuruvilla becomes BCCI GMAbey Kuruvilla, who served as a senior national selector for a year till December, has been made the GM (operations) of the BCCI. The post was vacated after Dhiraj Malhotra resigned two months ago.

Kuruvilla stepped down as a selector in January because he had completed five years of being a selector. He was earlier the chief junior selector for four years.