The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the annual retainerships for the Indian men's players, with Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan returning to the fold. Iyer and Kishan were left out of the recommendations last year after not fulfilling the criteria by not playing enough domestic games to qualify. While Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah stay in the top category, there are a few changes in each of the other three Grades, while a few new names are being added and some of them having snubbed.
Take a look at all the changes in India's retainership list:
IN:
Iyer and Kishan were obviously the big inclusions after not being considered the last time around, five players were handed the contracts for the first time around. Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akash Deep, Abhishek Sharma, Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana were the new entrants, having represented India across formats in the last 12 months or so. While Rana made his debut for India across all three formats, he was part of the Champions Trophy squad in Dubai. Nitish Reddy played all five Tests in Australia and similarly, Akash Deep has been a Test regular too.
Sarfaraz Khan and Dhruv Jurel were the two names included in last year's list, even though it was announced before each of them played their respective third Test in Dharamsala against England in March 2024.
OUT:
Senior off-spinner R Ashwin was left out after India's second-highest wicket-taker in Tests announced his retirement from international cricket during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Jitesh Sharma, KS Bharat, Avesh Khan and Shardul Thakur were the only ones apart from Ashwin to be dropped from the contracts list, whilst the likes of Rajat Patidar, Prasidh Krishna and Ruturaj Gaikwad were retained despite playing very limited matches.
Promotion/Demotion:
Rishabh Pant was the only one out of 34 players to move categories after being promoted from Grade B to Grade A, with the BCCI probably indicating things to come. Pant may not be a sure-shot starter in white-ball cricket for India but the southpaw is the first-choice keeper-batter for India in Test cricket and might be among the potential candidates to be considered for red-ball captaincy.
Grade A+: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja
Grade A: Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant
Grade B: Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Axar Patel
Grade C: Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ishan Kishan, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Sanju Samson, Mukesh Kumar, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Rajat Patidar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakaravarthy, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Washington Sundar