The secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has confirmed that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli continue to hold Grade A+ contract despite retiring from Tests. Both the veterans announced their decision to retire from the longest format of the game in a span of just one week. Incidentally, both Kohli and Rohit were retained in the top grade of the BCCI central contracts despite having retired from T20Is and Tests.
Ro-Ko to be retained in A+ category in BCCI central contracts
As per news agency ANI, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said that both Rohit and Kohli were still a part of Indian cricket and that they would would get all the facilities of Grade A+ category.
“Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s grade A+ contract will continue even after both announced retirement from T- 20 and Test Matches. They are still part of Indian cricket, they will get all facilities of Grade A+,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said.
As per the BCCI’s policy, Grade A+ sontracts are awarded to players who are a part of all three formats of the game. Howver, Rohit and Kohii had decided to call it a day from T20Is after winning the World Cup in 2024. Subsequently, the duo have decided to retire from Tests just before the start of the next WTC cycle and the England series.
The only format in which Ro-Ko are currently active is in ODIs. The obvious goal is for the duo to win the 2027 World Cup, in compensation possibly for the heartbreaking loss in the final of the event in 2023 when they narrowly missed out on lifting the trophy.
BCCI Central Contracts 2024-25, Full List
| Grade | Player |
| A+ | Virat Kohli |
| Ravindra Jadeja | |
| Rohit Sharma | |
| Jasprit Bumrah | |
| Grade A | Rishabh Pant |
| Mohammed Shami | |
| Mohammed Siraj | |
| KL Rahul | |
| Shubman Gill | |
| Hardik Pandya | |
| Grade B | Suryakumar Yadav |
| Kuldeep Yadav | |
| Axar Patel | |
| Shreyas Iyer | |
| Yashasvi Jaiswal | |
| Grade C | Rinku Singh |
| Tilak Varma | |
| Ruturaj Gaikwad | |
| Shivam Dube | |
| Ravi Bishnoi | |
| Washington Sundar | |
| Mukesh Kumar | |
| Sanju Samson | |
| Arshdeep Singh | |
| Prasidh Krishna | |
| Rajat Patidar | |
| Dhruv Jurel | |
| Sarfaraz Khan | |
| Nitish Kumar Reddy | |
| Ishan Kishan | |
| Abhishek Sharma | |
| Akash Deep | |
| Varun Chakravarthy | |
| Harshit Rana |
