The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will announce the central contracts for the upcoming 2025-26 season by the end of the current week. The BCCI has already been a little late, considering they released the contracts last year in February. The BCCI seems to have convened on making changes to the India cricket team’s support staff and the player’s contracts at the same time.
Earlier today, we heard that India’s assistant coach Abhishek Nayar has been sacked before the England tour. Now, according to Cricbuzz, the central contracts will be out soon as well.
Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Kumar Reddy & Harshit Rana to be rewarded
It was previously reported that Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah will be retained in the Grade A+. The new information tells us that three new players will be BCCI central contracts. These will be Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Harshit Rana.
All three made their debuts after the last contracts were announced. As per BCCI guidelines, “athletes who meet the criteria of playing a minimum of three Tests or eight ODIs or 10 T20Is within the specified period will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis.”
The consideration period for these matches usually is from October to September. Abhishek has played 17 T20Is for India since his debut. Nitish Reddy has got 5 Test matches and 4 T20Is under his belt. Therefore, both of them qualify.
As for Harshit, he’s played just 8 matches (2 Tests, 5 ODIs, and 1 T20I) and doesn’t qualify in one single format but can be given a contract considering he’s played in all three formats.
Varun Chakaravarthy & Shreyas Iyer to return
Varun Chakaravarthy and Shreyas Iyer are expected to return as well. Shreyas was denied a BCCI central contract last year due to some issues with the board. As for Chakaravarthy, he returned to the Indian team last year and has played 4 ODIs and 18 T20Is. Both played a role in India winning the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
BCCI central contracts 2023-24 (current)
Grade A+ (4 Athletes)
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A (6 Athletes)
Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.
Grade B (5 Athletes)
Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Grade C (15 Athletes)
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
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