Young wicket-keeper batter Richa Ghosh and Jemimah Rodrigues have been elevated to B category in the BCCI central contracts for the 2022-23 season while the likes of Shikha Pandey and Taniya Bhatia have been dropped. (More Cricket News)
The contract period runs from October to September, but the BCCI made the announcement on Thursday.
Young wicket-keeper batter Richa Ghosh and Jemimah Rodrigues have been elevated to B category in the BCCI central contracts for the 2022-23 season while the likes of Shikha Pandey and Taniya Bhatia have been dropped. (More Cricket News)
The contract period runs from October to September but the BCCI made the announcement on Thursday.
A player in A category gets paid Rs 50 lakh over and above match fees and Rs 30 lakh and Rs 10 lakh are allotted for B and C category respectively.
The board has kept only three players in the highest category and they include skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, star batter Smriti Mandhana and all-rounder Deepti Sharma.
All three have been retained in the same category, while spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad has been demoted to B category. Leg spinner Poonam Yadav, who was in the A category last year, doesn't have a contract at all after falling down in the pecking order. She last played for India in March 2022.
Veteran pacer Shikha Pandey, who had made a surprise comeback for the T20 World Cup in South Africa, finds herself without a contract and so does wicket-keeper Taniya Bhatia.
Pacer Renuka Thakur, who did not have a contract last year, has been bracketed straight into the B category after a stellar season.
Richa Ghosh and Jemimah Rodrigues have moved up from C to B category. New entrants in Category C include pacer Meghna Singh, batter Devika Vaidya, opener S Meghana, Radha Yadav, left-arm pacer Anjali Sarvani and batter Yastika Bhatia.
Harleen Deol and Sneh Rana remain in the lowest category, while injury prone all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar has been demoted to C from B.
The BCCI, which announced equal pay for women cricketers last year, has kept the number of contracted to 17.
The full list:
Category A: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandha and Deepti Sharma.
Category B: Renuka Thakur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Rajeshwari Gayakwad.
Category C: Meghna Singh, Devika Vaidya, S Meghana, Anjali Sarvani, Pooja Vastrakar, Sneh Rana, Radha Yadav, Harleen Deol and Yastika Bhatia.