Yuvraj, Gambhir dropped from BCCI contract list

Mumbai, Dec 22 (IANS) A few weeks after they were left out of the 30-member preliminary squad for the 2015 World Cup, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh were Monday dropped from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) contracts list while medium pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar was promoted to a Grade A contract.

Pacer Mohammed Shami, Ambati Rayudu and Ajinkya Rahane have been promoted from Grade C to Grade B, while Gambhir, Yuvraj, Dinesh Karthik and Jaydev Unadkat have been struck off the contracts list.

Both Yuvraj and Gambhir were part of Grade A contracts last season.

Several players who did not have a contract last season have been absorbed in Grade C this time around, including Varun Aaron, Stuart Binny, Pankaj Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni, Parvez Rasool, Axar Patel, Robin Uthappa, Manoj Tiwari, Karn Sharma, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav and K L Rahul.

Pragyan Ojha, Ishant Sharma, M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja and Rohit Sharma have been kept back in Grade B, while Amit Mishra, Wriddhiman Saha, Vinay Kumar and Mohit Sharma remained in Grade C.

BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said in a release that players who do not have contracts but feature for India in any of the three formats would be given a Grade C contract once they debut.

BCCI contracts list for 2014-15:

Grade A: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar
.
Grade B: Pragyan Ojha, M. Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Ambati Rayudu, Md. Shami.

Grade C: Amit Mishra, Varun Aaron, Wriddhiman Saha, Stuart Binny, Pankaj Singh, R. Vinay Kumar, Mohit Sharma, Dhawal Kulkarni, Parveez Rasool, Axar Patel, Manoj Tiwary, Robin Uthappa, Karn Sharma, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav, K.L. Rahul.