Former India captains Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who now play only one of the three international formats, have dropped down to the second tier (Category B) of the BCCI’s list of contracted men’s players for 2025-26. These contracts cover the period from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026.
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The top tier (Category A) only includes three players: Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill, fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, and allrounder Ravindra Jadeja, who is now India’s most experienced active Test player.
The new contracts list does not include the A+ grade that was in place in the 2024-25 list. Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah and Jadeja had been the four players in that tier.
This effectively means that Gill, who took over both the Test and ODI captaincy from Rohit last year, is the biggest upwards mover in the list.
T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav is in Category B alongside seniors including Test keeper and vice-captain Rishabh Pant, batters KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer, allrounders Hardik Pandya and Washington Sundar, wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav and fast bowler Mohammed Siraj.
Going by the players in the two lists, the BCCI seems to have combined Grades A and B from the 2024-25 list into a single middle tier for 2025-26, Category B. Judged this way, Washington has moved up a tier.
Fellow spin-bowling allrounder Axar Patel has been downgraded from Grade B to Category C, even though he has been a key player in both white-ball formats, and is vice-captain of the India squad that is currently playing the T20 World Cup.
There are no newly contracted players, with the overall men’s list trimmed from 34 players to 30. Senior fast bowler Mohammed Shami, who was in Grade A in the 2024-25 list, and Sarfaraz Khan, Rajat Patidar and Mukesh Kumar (all Grade C) have dropped out of the current list.
The BCCI has not revealed the payscales for the three contract categories.
List of BCCI-contracted players for 2025-26
Category A: Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja.
Category B: Washington Sundar, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer.
Category C: Axar Patel, 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, B Sai Sudharsan, Ravi Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad.