Rahane gets Grade A contract, Raina demoted.
By Dileep Thekkethil
Suresh Raina’s poor form in the last few one-day series has caused him his elite position in the BCCI contract as the cricketing board decided to demote the Indian all-rounder from ‘A’ grade to ‘B’.
Raina, who was part of the banned ‘Chennai Super Kings’ in the IPL, has been a complete failure in the last few matches, scoring three consecutive ducks in one-day internationals. His performance with the ball also failed to impress the selectors, which led to his ousting from the test squad against South Africa.
Indian pace bowler Bhuvaneshwar Kumar also received the whip from BCCI as he too lost his ‘A’ grade following poor performance. Even though Kumar made it to the squad of test players for the ongoing series against South Africa, he has not bowled a single ball in a test match since January.
Women’s Cricket for the first time got listed in the central contract system with Indian Captain Mithali Raj and star player Jhulan Goswami getting top billing.
The revised contract was uploaded in the BCCI’s official website on Monday.
Despite announcing his retirement from test cricket, Indian ODI captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni retained his position as an ‘A’ grade player along with Virat Kohli, R Ashwin and Ajinkya Rahane, who got a promotion from ‘B’ grade following better display with the bat in Tests and ODIs. Rahane is touted as a strong defence in the team for the coming few years.
Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami received Grade A contracts along with Harmanpreet Kaur and MD Thirushkamini. They are guaranteed a sum of Rs 15 lakhs for the 2015-16 season.
Shashank Manohar had said in his first press conference as the BCCI President “It has been decided that women cricketers will get central contracts. We will continue to work on women’s cricket and I hope this move would encourage more and more young girls to take up the sport.”
The newly-wed Harbhajan Singh has nothing to cheer as he is trapped in Grade C despite getting back to form in the recently concluded ODI vs South Africa. His name was nowhere in the last year’s listing of probable test players.
Ravindra Jadeja who has been delivering inconsistent performance for many months has found himself as a C grade player despite getting a Man of the Match award in the last test against South Africa in Mohali.
Despite showing talent in lower formats of the game, Pragyan Ojha, Robin Uthappa, Sanju Samson and Manoj Tiwary have failed to impress the selectors and are out of the contract list for the upcoming season.
Senior Men (2015-16)
Grade A (INR One Crore): MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane.
Grade B (INR 50 lakhs): Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Rohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammad Shami.
Grade C (INR 25 lakhs): Amit Mishra, Axar Patel, Stuart Binny, Wriddhiman Saha, Mohit Sharma, Varun Aaron, Karn Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Dhawal Kulkarni, Harbhajan Singh, S Arvind.
Senior Women (2015-16)
Grade A (INR 15 lakhs): Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur, MD Thirushkamini.
Grade B (INR 10 lakhs): Smriti Mandana, Rajeswari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bist, Veda Krishnamurthy, Niranjana Nagarajan, Poonam Raut.
Note: If a player who is not in the list of contracted players plays a minimum of three matches Test/ODI/T20I, he or she will be added in Grade ‘C’/Grade ‘B’, respectively.