BCCI Annual Contracts: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma Demoted To Grade B; Shubman Gill In A Category - Full Details

The Board of Control for Cricket India, on Monday, February 9, announced their annual retainership contract list for the on-going 2025-26 season across the Men's and Women's categories.

This comes at a time when the Indian team is co-hosting the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 along with Sri Lanka, with the event kicking-off 2 days ago in Colombo.

Men in Blue remain heavy favourites to defend the T20 title they won for the 2nd time during the last edition in 2024. India defeated USA by 30 runs in their Group A opener last Sunday (February 7) and they will take on Namibia in their upcoming game.

Gill, Bumrah And Jadeja At Summit; Virat Kohli And Rohit Sharma Demoted To Grade B

As it was expected, former India captains Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been demoted to Grade B, following their departures from the shortest and the longest formats.

The duo only feature in ODI cricket now and have their sights set at featuring for India at the ICC ODI World Cup in South Africa and Zimbabwe next year.

Current skipper Shubman Gill, who was promoted to Grade A in the previous retainership last year, is up there with senior pacer Jasprit Bumrah and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.

Other than Rohit and Kohli, T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav, wicket-keepers KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer are among the 11 players slotted in Grade B.

Despite making his way back to the Indian XI, Ishan Kishan remains out of the mix for the BCCI Central contracts for 2025-26.

While the BCCI withheld the specific retainership figures for the three remaining categories, the removal of the A+ tier suggests a return to previous structures. In earlier seasons, these contracts were valued at ₹5 crore for Group A, ₹3 crore for Group B, and ₹1 crore for Group C.

Jemimah Rodrigues Rewarded For World Cup 2025 Brilliance

Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepti Sharma, and Smriti Mandhana remain in the highest-paid category (Grade A). After her brilliant World Cup semi-final against Australia, Jemimah Rodrigues moved up from Category B to A.

Sneh Rana also earned a promotion to Group B, joining teammates like Shafali Verma and Richa Ghosh. Meanwhile, 13 players were placed in Group C. Currently, these three levels pay ₹50 lakh, ₹30 lakh, and ₹10 lakh annually.

BCCI Annual Contracts: Men's And Women's List