Sarfaraz Khan and Dhruv Jurel are all set to get Rs. 1 crore contract from the BCCI if they are selected in the playing XI for the fifth Test against England. This was revealed by the Indian cricket board when they announced the list of newly contracted players. As expected, Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer have been dropped from the list of contradicted players for refusing to play in the domestic league.
Under the new list of contracted players for 2023-24, four players namely Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja have been given A+ contract meaning all of them would earn at least Rs. 7 crore for this period.
Six players namely R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya have been awarded A contract, which means they will earn at least Rs. 5 crore.
Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal have been given B contract whereby they will likely earn Rs. 3 crore each.
15 players namely Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaekwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan and Rajat Patidar have been included in the C contract list. This will entitle them to earn at least Rs. one crore for this duration.
Additionally, the BCCI said, athletes who meet the criteria of playing a minimum of 3 Tests or 8 ODIs or 10 T20Is within the specified period will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis. For instance, Dhruv Jurel and Sarfaraz Khan, having played two Test matches so far, will be inducted into Grade C if they participate in the Dharamsala Test Match, i.e., the 5th Test of the ongoing series against England.
The BCCI said that Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were not considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations as it advised all cricketers to ‘give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team.’
The Selection Committee has also recommended Fast Bowling contracts for the following athletes – Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and Vidwath Kaverappa.