In a significant development, there are reports that the BCCI is likely to reward Abhishek Sharma with a central contract after his heroics in IPL 2025. The SRH opener is set to be placed in grade C of the central contract.
It is worth noting that Abhishek Sharma fulfilled the BCCI’s criteria of playing 10 T20Is within a specific period, which guarantees an automatic grade C contract. Thus, Sharma will be enrolled in a pay grade of 01 crore after the contract.
“Athletes who meet the criteria of playing a minimum of three Tests or eight ODIs or 10 T20Is within the specified period will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis,” BCCI standard policy read.
Apart from Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Reddy is also in the running to be part of the central contracts lists. The 21 year old Andhra all-rounder has played five tests and four T20Is and should qualify to be in the list by virtue of having played the required number of Tests.
For the record, he was part of all five Tests in the BGT series Down Under. Meanwhile, Harshit Rana will also be included has played two tests, five ODIs and one T20I and does not fulfil the criteria in any of the three formats seperately.
But Cumulatively he has played a sufficient number of games to be in the list. The mystery Spinner Varun Chakravarthy should come into the list, as well as Shreyas Iyer, who was one of the star performers in the recently Champions Trophy.
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja will continue to be A+ category and it is unlikely that there will too many changes to the grading- give or two-three names.
The Contracts are expected to be announced in a couple of days along with the changes to the support staff of the Indian teams.
