Central Contract: Kohli, Rohit downgraded to group B

Senior superstars Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were on expected lines downgraded to group B of the latest annual central contract awarded by the BCCI which also abolished the prevailing A+ category carrying a retainership fee of Rs 7 crore. The BCCI on Monday awarded central contract to 30 men and 21 women cricketers classified in group A, B and C. Two-format skipper Shubman Gill along with senior pacer Jasprit Bumrah and premier Test all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja were retained in group A. However, the BCCI didn’t mention the quantum of retainership fees for the three categories. With A+ being done away, in the earlier seasons, group A was valued at Rs 5 crore, group B at Rs 3 crore annually, and group C at Rs 1 crore. As far as Kohli and Rohit are concerned, their retirement from Tests and T20Is effectively makes them one-format players and hence as per criteria, they couldn’t have been retained in the top-most category. It is understood that A+ was a gradation that was introduced by the erstwhile Committee of Administrators (COA) at the behest of former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It was meant for excellence across three formats and all these years, only four people qualified — Kohli, Rohit, Jadeja and Bumrah — in that category. But, with three of the four retiring from one or two formats, the BCCI didn’t want just Bumrah to be kept in A+ as the national selection committee isn’t convinced that Test and ODi skipper Gill is an all-format certainty after being dropped from the T20 World Cup squad. @@@