The BCCI Central Contract is set to be revamped to adjust the pay of talismanic India pacer Jasprit Bumrah. The Indian apex body decided to remove the top Grade A+ category in this year’s contract as there were not enough players meeting the eligibility criteria. For a player to feature in the top bracket, they need to feature in all three formats of the game and should rank in Top 10 in at least one format.
However, following the retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from the longest format last year, there were not enough names who met the criteria and the BCCI subsequently decided to scrap it.
In the previous BCCI Central Contract, there were four players in the A+ category – Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja. However, Kohli and Rohit are now only active in ODIs, while Jaddu plays in ODIs and Tests. Currently, only Bumrah is consistently playing across all three formats but he was named in the Grade A category.
For the 2025–26 season, the BCCI awarded 30 players with central contracts, of which only Shubman Gill, Bumrah and Jadeja are in Grade A. Eleven players are in Grade B, and the rest are in Grade C.
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Jasprit Bumrah took a paycut of INR 2 crores after being named in Grade A – which pays an annual sum of INR 5 crores as compared to INR 7 crores in the A+. Thus, to compensate him for the remaining 2 crores, the BCCI is reworking the structure so that their top performer does not get less pay than before.
The talismanic pacer has been a key cog in India’s recent success where they won three ICC trophies in three years – T20 World Cup 2024, Champions Trophy 2025, and T20 World Cup 2026.
Apart from Bumrah, it is understood that the Indian board is also evaluating the contract values of some other players like Axar Patel (Grade C), KL Rahul (Grade B), who were moved to lower Grades despite playing multi-formats and putting across good performances.
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