Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni came up with the idea of Grade A+ in Annual Player Contracts, says Vinod Rai

New Delhi: India captain Virat Kohli and his predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni had come up with the idea of Category A+ players list with the view to adequately compensate the top performers and ensure that players give their best. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Wednesday the Annual Player Contracts with four categories – A+, A, B and C.
 

According to ESPNCricinfo former India skipper and coach Anil Kumble had spoken to the BCCI and Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) about increasing the pay of players, coaches and support staff. CoA chairperson Vinod Rai former women Test cricketer Diana Edulji and BCCI chief executive officer Rahul Johri then met Kohli, Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and India coach Ravi Shastri where the idea of having the A+ category was proposed.
 
"This suggestion originated from Virat and MS in the discussions. Their logic was this category would have only players featuring in all three formats, players who are in the top-10 rankings," Rai told ESPNCricinfo. The A+ category is purely performance based and if a player is unable to fulfil the criteria, he would be taken out of the same. While Kohli, Rohit, Dhawan and Bumrah fulfil all the criteria, Bhuvneshwar is not in the top-10 rank in any of the three formats but has been retained in Grade A+ as he is the bowling spearhead.
 
Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah are in A+ grade and they will be paid Rs 7 crore from October 2017 to September 2018. Dhoni along with Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara,  Ajinkya Rahane and Wridhhiman Saha have been kept in Grade A and their salary is Rs 5 crore.
 
Grade B players will get Rs 3 crore and KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma and Dinesh Karthik are eligible for the same. The last category is C with salary of Rs 1 crore and the players are Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel and Jayant Yadav.