Pant promoted, Iyer and Kishan return as BCCI announces 2024-25 central contracts

Batsmen Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan have returned to India’s central contract list for the 2024-25 season after missing out last year, while wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant earned a promotion to Grade A, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Monday.

Pant, who made a strong comeback to competitive cricket with the Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL after a long injury layoff, joins the likes of Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, and Shubman Gill in the second tier of the BCCI’s contract structure.

The elite Grade A+ list remains unchanged, with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja continuing as the highest earners. In 2023, A+ contracts carried a reported annual salary of $844,000, while Grade A players received around $603,000.

Shreyas Iyer, who had been excluded last year for skipping domestic commitments, now finds himself in Grade B alongside Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, and rising opener Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Ishan Kishan, another player dropped in the previous cycle for similar reasons, returns in the Grade C bracket, which also includes newcomers such as Sarfaraz Khan, Abhishek Sharma, and Harshit Rana—all earning central contracts for the first time.

Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who announced his retirement from international cricket earlier this year, has been omitted from the list.

India central contracts for 2024-25:

A+: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja
A: Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant
B: Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer
C: Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana

(Source: AFP)