BCCI restructures contracts- Adversity for Yuvraj continues

The BCCI's Gradation Committee, which met in Chennai on Thursday sent a clear signal to out-of-favour Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh at its meeting  where it handed out a demotion to the Punjab player from Grade 'A'  - the highest - of the BCCI's list of central contracts for 2010-11 to Grade 'B'. 

Suresh Raina who has been the main benefactors of Yuvi's dip in form , has done well to get a well deserved promotion from Grade 'B' to 'A'.

Some other expected changes were that of Virat Kohli, M Vijay and Pragyan Ojha who have moved up to Grade B, while the " IPL only hero" Rohit Sharma has been demoted to C.

Cheteshwar Pujara who scored a half century on debut against Australia has moved to Grade C along with Karnataka pacers Vinay Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun and Tamil Nadu off-spinner R Ashwin.

However, the Pathan brothers Irfan and Yusuf, UP pacers Rudra Pratap Singh, Sudeep Tyagi,  Gujarat skipper Parthiv Patel, Bengal's Manoj Tiwary, Wriddhiman Saha and Ashok Dinda, Delhi batsman Shikhar Dhawan, Mumbai players Ajinkya Rahane, Wasim Jaffer , Abhishek Nayar along with Tamil Nadu captain Dinesh Karthik who had done a reasonably good job are without any central contracts.

The details pertaining to the central contracts given to players in Grades A, B and C are as follows:

Grade-A

1. Gautam Gambhir 

2. Harbhajan Singh 

3. M S Dhoni

4. Rahul Dravid 

5. Sachin Tendulkar

6. Suresh Raina 

7. Virender Sehwag

8. VVS Laxman

9. Zaheer Khan

Grade-B

1. Ashish Nehra 

2. Ishant Sharma

3. Praveen Kumar

4. M Vijay

5. Pragyan Ojha

6. Virat Kohli

7. Yuvraj Singh

Grade-C

1. Abhimanyu Mithun

2. Amit Mishra

3. R Ashwin

4. Rohit Sharma

5. Cheteshwar Pujara

6. Ravindra Jadeja

7. S Sreesanth 

8. Vinay Kumar

It was also decided to revise the contract fee and the match fee.

Contract fee for the period 1st October 2010 to 30th September 2011:

Grade A - Rs. 1 Crore

Grade B - Rs. 50 lakhs

Grade C - Rs. 25 lakhs

Match Fee for Playing XI:

Test - Rs. 7 lakhs / per Test

ODI - Rs. 4 lakhs / per ODI

T20 - Rs. 2 lakhs / per T20

Match fee for non-playing squad members will be 50 % their match fee.

If a non-contracted player is selected to play for Team India, he will be given a pro-rata contract in the 'C' Grade.