Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Poonam Yadav get Grade A in BCCI annual contract for women's team

India's T20 International skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, opener Smriti Mandhana and spinner Poonam Yadav have been given Grade A contract by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The three players will be paid Rs 50 lakh each as per the contracts for senior women cricketers for the period between October 2019 to September 2020 announced by the Indian cricket board on Thursday a few hours after revealing the details of the men's team in which Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the surprise ommission.

The women's team contract has three grades - A, B and C unlike the men's team which has been divided in four parts - A+, A, B and C. Just like the men's team contract which has only three players captain Virat Kohli, explosive limited overs format opener Rohit Sharma and pacer Jasprit Bumrah, the women's contract too has three players in the top category.

Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues and Taniya Bhatia have been placed in Grade B under which the players will be paid Rs 30 lakh each. The thrid grade has Veda Krishnamurthy, Punam Raut, Anuja Patil, Mansi Joshi, D Hemlatha, Arundhati Reddy, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Pooja Vastrakar, Harleen Deol, Priya Punia and Shafali Verma. They will be paid Rs 10 lakh each for the same duration.

Earlier in the day, the men's contract had been announced with the big ommission of Dhoni. Kohli, Rohit and Bumrah are in Grade A+ category which has a pay packet of Rs 7 crore for the October 2019 to September 2020 duration.

Mayank Agarwal, Navdeep Saini, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sunder and Deepak Chahar are the new entrants in the BCCI contract list. While Mayank Agarwal is in Grade B and will earn Rs 3 crore, the other four players have got the Grade C contract and will be paid Rs 1 crore each.

Grade A, where the annunal salary is Rs 5 crore, includes Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav and Rishabh Pant. Grade B list has Mayank Agarwal, Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Hardik Pandya. They will be paid Rs 3 crore each while Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Navdeep Saini, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sunder and Deepak Chahar will be paid Rs 1 crore as part od Grade C deal.