Rohit Sharma & Virat Kohli Lose Top Status As BCCI Officially Announce Annual Player Retainership for 2025-26; Shami Not Listed

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced its Senior Men's and Women's Annual Player Retainership for 2025-26 (October 1st, 2025 to September 30th, 2026). The notable change was the abolition of the Grade A+ category, with only A, B, and C grades being the only official ones.

The scrapping of the Grade A+ category led to the demotion of Indian ODI cricketers Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. They have now been moved to Grade B, given that they are now a one-format player after retiring from Tests and T20I cricket.

Rohit Sharma & Virat Kohli Demoted As BCCI Announce Men's Annual Player Retainership for 2025-26

This year, the BCCI has opted to retain 30 senior men's cricketers in the annual player retainership for 2025-26. Grade A is now the top categorised grade in the contracts' list, which features India Test and ODI skipper Shubman Gill, seamer Jasprit Bumrah and spin-bowling all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.

Grade B primarily features seasoned cricketers like wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul & Rishabh Pant, all-rounders Washington Sundar & Hardik Pandya, batters Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer & Yashasvi Jaiswal. Bowlers Mohammed Siraj and Kuldeep Yadav are also part of the category.

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Grade C features a mix of seasoned and young cricketers, with stars like Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Arshdeep Singh, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy. Even Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudharsan, Ravi Bishnoi, Axar Patel and Ruturaj Gaikwad are also named in the list.

Senior Women's Annual Contracts for 2025-26 Also Announced

The BCCI also announced the Indian senior women's annual retainership for 2025-26, with four cricketers – Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah rodrigues and Deepti Sharma – being in Grade A. Grade B features some of India's clinical talent, with stars like Renuka Thakur, Shafali Varma, Richa Ghosh and Sneh Rana. 

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Grade C features a blend of seasoned and young talent in the list. Cricketers like G Kamalini, Vaishnavi Sharma, and Kashvee Gautam are some of the young talents who have received a contract. Mainstays like Pratika Rawal, Amanjot Kaur, Sree Charani, Radha Yadav, among others, are also a part of the list.