The BCCI have excluded MS Dhoni from the list of annually contracted players from the period from October 2019 to September 2020. Meanwhile, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah are the only three players to have been awarded A+ contracts, which, in turn, has a salary cap of Rs 7 cr.

In what has come up as a shocking revelation, the BCCI, on Thursday, excluded the name of MS Dhoni from the list of centrally contracted players for the 2019/20 season. Dhoni, who last played an international game for India in July 2019, was holding an A contract - the second-best category - but now finds himself without a contract to his name.

Meanwhile, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah are the only three cricketers to feature in the A+ list, the top-most bracket, which has a salary cap of Rs 7 cr. Shikhar Dhawan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who previously held A+ contracts, have been demoted to the A category, which will see the players getting paid a sum of Rs 5 cr.

Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja also find themselves in the A category, whilst Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal and Yuzvendra Chahal find themselves in the B category, which has a salary cap of Rs 3 cr.

On the other hand, Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer and Washington Sundar have landed themselves a Grade C contract, which has a salary cap of Rs 1 cr. Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel and Jayant Yadav, who were all awarded contracts for the previous season, now find themselves without a contract. Youngster Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill also find themselves without contracts.

Grade A+ (INR 7 cr): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah

Grade A (INR 5 cr):Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, K L Rahul, Shikhar DhawanMohd. Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant

Grade B (INR 3 cr): Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal

Grade C (INR 1 cr): Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar

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