BCCI exclude MS Dhoni from annually contracted players list for 2019-20 season

In what has come up as a shocking revelation, the BCCI, on Thursday, excluded the name of MS Dhoni from the list of centrally contracted players for the 2019/20 season. Dhoni, who last played an international game for India in July 2019, was holding an A contract - the second-best category - but now finds himself without a contract to his name. 

Meanwhile, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah are the only three cricketers to feature in the A+ list, the top-most bracket, which has a salary cap of Rs 7 cr.  Shikhar Dhawan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who previously held A+ contracts, have been demoted to the A category, which will see the players getting paid a sum of Rs 5 cr. 

Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja also find themselves in the A category, whilst Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal and Yuzvendra Chahal find themselves in the B category, which has a salary cap of Rs 3 cr. 

On the other hand, Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer and Washington Sundar have landed themselves a Grade C contract, which has a salary cap of Rs 1 cr.  Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel and Jayant Yadav, who were all awarded contracts for the previous season, now find themselves without a contract. Youngster Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill also find themselves without contracts.

Grade A+ (INR 7 cr): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah

Grade A (INR 5 cr): Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, K L Rahul, Shikhar DhawanMohd. Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant

Grade B (INR 3 cr): Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal

Grade C (INR 1 cr): Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar

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