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New Delhi: In a massive change, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to remove the A+ category in the central contracts. The board is also set to demote star players Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to the B category, while Mohammed Shami and Ishan Kishan have been released from the central contracts list.

According to a Dainik Jagran report, veteran batters Kohli and Rohit, who featured in the A+ category, have been demoted to the B category following their retirements from Tests and T20Is. India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav has also been placed in the B category.

Shami last played for India in the 2025 Champions Trophy and has been ignored by the selectors since then, despite performing well in domestic cricket. Kishan has recently been included in the Indian squad for the 2026 T20 World Cup in place of Shubman Gill, but the wicketkeeper-batter has been released from the central contracts list.

Earlier, the BCCI’s central contracts were divided into four categories, including A+ (Rs 7 crore), A (Rs 5 crore), B (Rs 3 crore) and C (Rs 1 crore). However, the A+ category has been removed from the central contracts, which was also confirmed by the BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia.

“The plan will go ahead very soon. We are removing one category because the players who were eligible for the A-plus category are now playing just one of the three formats. The criteria we have set to qualify a player for A-plus are not being fulfilled,” Saikia said earlier.

A Grade: Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja

B Grade: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Washington Sundar, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Mohammad Siraj, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer.

C Grade: Axar Patel, Tilak Verma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Aakash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudarshan, Ravi Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad.