BCCI Introduces Central Contracts

CALCUTTA, 27 September 2004 — India’s cricket board introduced long-awaited central player contracts yesterday. A committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chose 17 players for the one-year contracts, which will take effect from Friday, board President Jagmohan Dalmiya told reporters. The players have been graded in three categories with annual salaries of five million rupees ($108,930), 3.5 million rupees ($76,250) and two million rupees ($43,570).

Captain Saurav Ganguly, batsmen Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Vangipurappu Laxman and spinners Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh are placed in the top category.

Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Asish Nehra and Lakshmipathy Balaji are in the next.

Test stumper Parthiv Patel, Test opener Aakash Chopra and left-arm spinner Murali Kartik are in the third level.

The players would also receive 200,000 rupees ($4,360) for a home Test and 240,000 rupees ($5,230) for each away Test. For One-Dayers the fees would be 160,000 rupees ($3,485) and 185,000 rupees ($4,030) respectively.