BCCI Central Contracts 2025–26: Kohli, Rohit Moved to Grade B as Gill Leads New Top Tier

February 10, 2026: Former India captains Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been placed in Grade B of the BCCI’s central contracts for the 2025–26 season. This change reflects their limited involvement across formats, as both now play only one international format. The downgrade also comes after the BCCI removed the A+ category, which existed in the previous contract cycle.

Only three players have been named in the top Grade A category — Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja. The new contracts will be valid from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026. Gill has emerged as the biggest gainer after becoming India’s Test and ODI captain, while Bumrah continues to lead the pace attack and Jadeja remains a key senior player in Tests.

Big reshuffle in contract categories

Last season, Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah and Jadeja were all part of the now-removed A+ category. Grade B now includes players like Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammed Siraj. The new structure suggests the BCCI has merged the earlier Grades A and B into one middle tier, helping players like Washington Sundar.

BCCI’s annual contracts list has been announced.

Grade A (Rs 5 crore), Grade B (Rs 3 crore), and Grade C (Rs 1 crore).

The Grade A+ (Rs 7 crore) category has been removed.

This is outright exploitation, with BCCI now paying the least to its played among the Big 3, despite… pic.twitter.com/2tX8pCph0z

— Ragav X (@ragav_x) February 9, 2026

Axar Patel has been placed in Grade C, despite being a regular in white-ball cricket and the current vice-captain of India’s T20 World Cup squad. The total number of contracted players has been cut from 34 to 30, with Mohammed Shami, Sarfaraz Khan, Rajat Patidar and Mukesh Kumar missing from the new list. The BCCI has not shared the salary details for the contract grades.

Grade C includes several established and young players such as Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudharsan, Ravi Bishnoi and Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Complete List of BCCI Men’s Central Contracts 2025-26