Ashwin is now the only full-time spinner with a Grade A contract
India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has been awarded a Grade A contract by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), while veteran Harbhajan Singh and pace bowler Ishant Sharma were demoted from Grade A to Grade B contracts.
Singh and Sharma will now each receive a salary of Rs 50 lakh (approx $93,000) from October 2012 to September 2013 instead of the Rs 1 crore (approx $186,000) Grade A contracts are worth.
Many cricket pundits believe Sharma and Singh were both demoted due to their inconsistent bowling and for picking up numerous injuries, which required months of treatment.
The BCCI’s central contracts committee, which consists of board president Narayanaswami Srinivasan, secretary Sanjay Jagdale and the chairman of the all-India selection panel Sandeep Patil, decided to cut the number of players with Grade A central contracts from 12 to nine.
The committee also made the decision to promote batsmen Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane from Grade C contracts, which are worth 25 lakh (around $46,500) annually, to Grade B.
Pace bowlers Umesh Yadav and Irfan Pathan, who has spent a lot of the last two years on the sidelines, were also promoted from Grade C to Grade B contracts.
Meanwhile, quick bowler Praveen Kumar and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja have both been demoted from Grade B contracts to Grade C.
Shanthakumaran Sreesanth and Jaydev Unadkat have been removed from the list of centrally contracted players, while pace bowler Lakshmipathy Balaji and all-rounder Yusuf Pathan have been added back onto the list.
Furthermore, quick bowler Ashok Dinda also made the central contracts list for the first time in his international career.
The Grade A players are as follows: Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli, R Ashwin
The Grade B players are as follows: Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Irfan Pathan, Umesh Yadav
The Grade C players are as follows: Ravindra Jadeja, Amit Mishra, R Vinay Kumar, Munaf Patel, Abhimanyu Mithun, Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha, Parthiv Patel, Manoj Tiwary, S Badrinath, Piyush Chawla, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Sharma, Varun Aaron, Abhinav Mukund, Ashok Dinda, Yusuf Pathan, Praveen Kumar, L Balaji