Zaheer Khan upgraded to top grade

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has offered central contracts to 33 players, with top-grade cricketers being offered a whopping Rs 60 lakhs. The retainership for various categories was hiked and the BCCI announced that it would offer contracts to a record number of players. All top players have received A-grade contracts, while an extra category, the D-grade, has been created to include promising cricketers.

The A-grade contract, which comes with a retainer of Rs 60 lakh, was offered to Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan. Of this lot, Zaheer is the biggest gainer as he was on a C-grade contract last year.

Grade B comes with a retainer of Rs 40 lakh, Grade C 25 lakh and finally grade D Rs 15 lakh. In the final category the BCCI has included people like Subramaniam Badrinath and Cheteshwar Pujara, who have done well for India A but not yet made it to higher honours.

Any player from outside this list who played for India would automatically fall into the D grade, and when a player from the D grade notches up five Tests or 15 ODIs in the year he would automatically be upgraded to the C category.

Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors was part of the gradation committee that decided on which player would get what contract, along with Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, and Niranjan Shah, the secretary. Soon after the contracts were announced Vengsarkar said, "This is very good for the players. They are being rewarded for their performances. This will create a wider pool of players."

Grade A
Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan

Grade B
VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, S Sreesanth, Dinesh Karthik, RP Singh, Virender Sehwag.

Grade C
Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Powar, Munaf Patel, Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla, Suresh Raina.

Grade D
Rohit Sharma, Joginder Sharma, Manoj Tiwari, Ishant Sharma, Ranadeb Bose, Mohammad Kaif, Cheteshwar Pujara, Parthiv Patel, S Badrinath, Aakash Chopra, Yusuf Pathan.