Veteran India batters Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, who was recently dropped from the Indian team for the Sri Lanka Test series have been demoted in the latest central contracts list of the BCCI that was ratified by the Board’s Apex Council on Wednesday.

As per PTI reports, Pujara and Rahane, who were in Grade A are now in Grade B, after a consistent slump in form. Rahane even lost his Test vice-captaincy to KL Rahul ahead of the South Africa tour and now sees himself out of the team.

The BCCI has four categories — A+ which has annual remuneration of Rs 7 crore while A, B, and C categories are valued at Rs 5 crore, Rs 3 crore, and Rs 1 crore respectively.

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However, an even bigger hit has been taken by all-rounder Hardik Pandya who has been missing in action voluntarily since T20 World Cup 2021, as he was demoted from Category A to Category C, which might make him lose INR 4 crores annually.

Pandya has been on a sabbatical to gain full fitness in order to return for full all-rounder duties which have been hampered due to his back issues which have kept him from bowling his full quota of overs even in T20Is regularly.

Wriddhiman Saha, who was also dropped from the Indian side for the Sri Lanka series and possibly forever, has been demoted from group B to C.

Central Contracts List

Grade A+ (Rs 7 crore)

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah

Grade A (Rs 5 crore)

Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant

Grade B (Rs 3 crore)

Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Ishant Sharma

Grade C (Rs 1 crore)

Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Yuzvendra Chahal, Suryakumar Yadav, Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal

(PTI/Cricbuzz inputs)