MUMBAI: India’s premier pacer Jasprit Bumrah, ODI and Test skipper Shubman Gill and veteran allrounder Ravindra Jadeja are the only three players who will be given Grade A central contracts for 2025-26 by the BCCI, while former captains Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who play only the ODI format now, have been kept in the ‘B’ category, TOI has exclusively learned. Kohli and Rohit are both modern-day legends and were in the A+ category earlier, but have been moved to the B category as they now play only one out of three formats. Overall, 30 Indian players will be given the BCCI central contracts for the 2025–26 season, as per the recommendations of the national selectors. The Board is expected to officially announce the list of contracted players soon.
Bumrah, India’s premier pacer across formats and team’s strike bowler, was in the A+ category, and so was Jadeja. For Gill, being retained in the A category of central contracts is a major source of relief after being dropped from India’s T20 squad just ahead of the 2026 T20 World Cup at home. Like Kohli and Rohit, Jadeja has retired from T20Is, but he still features in Tests and ODIs, where he has been in poor form of late. TOI had reported in its Jan 21 edition that BCCI was set to make a major overhaul in its Annual Central Contracts system, with sweeping changes that could significantly reshape the hierarchy of Indian cricket’s elite players, for the 2025-26 season. The Ajit Agarkar-led national selection committee had proposed doing away with the prestigious Grade A+ category, which was introduced back in 2018 altogether, a move that directly impacted senior stalwarts Kohli and Rohit.Including Rohit and Virat, there are 11 players Who will be given Grade ‘B’ central contracts by the BCCI. The others in this category are: Off-spinning allrounder Washington Sundar, Test opener and ODI ‘keeper-batter KL Rahul, senior pacer Mohammed Siraj, white-ball allrounder Hardik Pandya, India’s Test vice-captain Rishabh Pant, Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav, India’s Test and ODI opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, India’s T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav, and ODI middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer.Grade C contracts will be given to 16 players-Axar Patel, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudarshan, Ravi Bishnoi and Ruturaj Gaikwad.Jemimah promoted to A category contractMeanwhile, in the case of the Indian women’s team, the biggest gainer in the case of annual retainership for 2025-26 is India’s 2025 World Cup semifinal hero Jemimah Rodrigues, who has been promoted to the A category, where she joins skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and ace allrounder Deepti Sharma. Rodrigues, who captained Delhi Capitals to the final in the recently-concluded Women’s Premier League, had slammed brilliant 127 not out off 134 balls to fashion a stunning five-wicket win over Australia in the semifinal of the 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup in Oct-Nov last year at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. Before that game, the Mumbai batter had smashed 76 not out off 55 balls against New Zealand to contribute to India’s win in a do-or-die game for them at the same venue.The list of men’s contracts for 2025-26Grade A: Jasprit Bumrah, Shubman Gill and Ravindra Jadeja.Grade B: Washington Sundar, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer. Grade C: Axar Patel, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudarshan, Ravi Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad.List of Women players for 2025-26 contractsGrade A: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma.Grade B: Renuka Thakur, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Sneh Rana.Grade C: Radha Yadav, Amanjot Kaur, Pratika Rawal, Kranti Gaud, Uma Chhetri (wk), Arundhati Reddy, Shree Charini, Yastika Bhatia, Harleen Deol, Kashvi Gautam, G Kamlini (wk), Vaishnavi Sharma, Tejal Hasbnis.
