||Desk Report||

The higher authority of Indian Cricket, BCCI, announced the new annual contracts for 2018-19 season on Thursday with the retainership to 25 cricketers in four categories of A+ (Rs 7 crore), A (Rs 5 crore), B (Rs 3 crore) and C (Rs 1 crore), reports local media.

The board added young wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant into the list and handed the A category for his consistent performance. Pant was not part of the 26-man list in the last season 2017-18. On the other hand, senior batsman Shikhar Dhawan and pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar got a demotion and downgraded from the A+ category. The Committee of Administrators, a supervisory authority of BCCI approved the contract.

However, in the latest list, only three players retain their spots in the A+ category- captain Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah. Left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed and batsman Hanuma Vihari are included in the C category. The three new comers Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw and Vijay Shankar have not been included in the list. The veterans Murali Vijay and Suresh Raina are also out the list.  Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul, who messed up with the recent chat-show controversy, remained in B group.

BCCI also announced the list of the women retainers. In this season, they included legspinner Poonam Yadav and handed A Category of 50 Lakh her which is the highest category for the women cricketers. She joins Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur, and Smriti Mandhana in this category. The experienced Jhulan Goswami has been downgraded from A to B (30 lakh).

The male cricketers list of contracts

The female cricketers list of contracts

A+ Category (7 crores): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah   A Category (5 crores): R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant   B Category (3 crores): B KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya   C Category (1 crore): Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Ambati Rayudu, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Khaleel Ahmed, Wriddhiman Saha

A Category (50 lakh): Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana   B Category (30 lakh): Ekta Bisht, Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rogdrigues   C Category (10 lakh): Radha Yadav, D Hemalatha, Anuja Patil, Veda Krishnamurthy, Mansi Joshi, Punam Raut, Mona Meshram, Arundhati Reddy, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Taniya Bhatia, Pooja Vastrakar