Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, player of the series in the home series against the West Indies and New Zealand has been upgraded to Grade ‘A’ in the BCCI central contracts announced on Friday, says a report in The Hindu, adding that Harbhajan Singh and fast bowler Ishant Sharma have been relegated to Group ‘B’.
“Nine players have been awarded the Group ‘A’ Rs. 1 crore contract, eight in the Group ‘B’ Rs. 50 lakh contract and 20 in the Group ‘C’ Rs. 25 lakh contract. The committee comprising the BCCI President, Secretary and the chairman of the selection committee have upgraded Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Umesh Yadav from Group ‘C’ to Group ‘B’ and placed Irfan Pathan in the same group. The Baroda all-rounder was not given a contract last October,” says the report, adding that left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja and seamer Praveen Kumar have been relegated from Group ‘B’ to Group ‘C’.
“Ashoke Dinda, Yusuf Pathan and L. Balaji have been offered the low-end contract and S. Sreesanth and Jaydev Unadkat have been altogether dropped,” adds the report
Meanwhile Deccan Chronicle writes that rising off-spinner R Ashwin today replaced out-of-form senior tweaker Harbhajan Singh in the top bracket of BCCI's list of central retainership contracts, while struggling pacer Ishant Sharma was also demoted from Grade A to B.
“Harbhajan and Ishant have spent the better part of this year out of the team struggling for form in whatever chances they have been handed. The 26-year-old Ashwin, on the other hand, has played eight Tests since making his debut in November last year, grabbing 49 wickets. In the recent home series against New Zealand, he had taken 18 wickets in two Tests. In the ODIs, he has scalped 56 wickets in 40 matches. The Chennai-bowler has 12 wickets from his 15 Twenty20 International appearances,” says the report, adding that the elite Grade A features nine players this year, three down from the last season, according to a press release issued by the BCCI.
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Grade ‘A’ (Rs. one crore each): Sachin Tendulkar, M.S. Dhoni, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli and R. Ashwin.
Grade ‘B’ (Rs. 50 lakh each): Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Irfan Pathan and Umesh Yadav.
Grade ‘C’ (Rs. 25 lakh each): Ravindra Jadeja, Amit Mishra, Vinay Kumar, Munaf Patel, Abhimanyu Mithun, Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha, Parthiv Patel, Manoj Tiwary, S. Badrinath, Piyush Chawla, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Sharma, Varun Aaron, Abhinav Mukund, Ashoke Dinda, Yusuf Pathan, Praveen Kumar and L. Balaji.
