A BCCI release on Wednesday said Iyer and Kishan “were not considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations” along with a reiteration of its recent stance that “all athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team”.
The final tier is populated by a lot of T20 specialists, including Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan and Rajat Patidar.
Siraj, Rahul and Gill are the new names in Grade A, all of them having been promoted from Grade B. Pant, who hasn’t played in over a year since a horrific car crash in December 2022, and Axar, have moved down to Grade B from Grade A.
Cheteshwar Pujara, Umesh Yadav, Shikhar Dhawan, Deepak Hooda and Yuzvendra Chahal have been omitted altogether, while there are a host of new names taking over: Jaiswal in Grade B, Rinku, Tilak, Gaikwad, Dube, Bishnoi, Jitesh, Mukesh, Prasidh, Avesh and Patidar in Grade C.
The BCCI did not mention the amounts for the four contract categories, but ESPNcricinfo understands that tthey are likely to go up from the previous year, when A+ was INR 7 crore, A was INR 5 crore, B was INR 3 crore, and C was INR 1 crore.
Additionally, the selection committee headed by Ajit Agarkar has recommended fast-bowling contracts to five players: Akash Deep, who made his debut in the fourth Test against England in Ranchi, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and V Kaverappa.