BCCI Central Contract 2025-26: Why Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been demoted to Group B, whereas Shubman Gill is in Group A?

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the Annual Player Contracts for Team India Senior Men and Senior Women for the 2025-26 season (October 1st, 2025 to September 30th, 2026). The biggest highlight of the fresh update of the contract list is that veteran cricketers Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been demoted to Group B. The previous A+ category has been discontinued.

The players are divided into three groups- Group A, Group B, and Group C

Group A features only Shubman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja. Whereas, Group B houses Washington Sundar, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryakumar Yadav, and Shreyas Iyer alongside Kohli and Sharma.

Group C has the biggest group, with a total of 16 players listed in this tier. Namely, Axar Patel, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Akashdeep, Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma, Sai Sudharsan, and Ravi Bishnoi.

Why have Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma been demoted to Group B of the BCCI's Central Contract List?

Notably, only those players have been kept in Group A who regularly play more than one format of the game. Shubman Gill is currently the captain of India's Test and ODI sides, and was appointed as the vice-captain in the T20I as well, but owing to some flop shows, he was dropped and not picked in the T20 World Cup side.

Jasprit Bumrah, on the other hand, is an all-format player. Whether it is the Tests, ODIs, or T20Is, he is the bowling spearhead of India.

Ravindra Jadeja, the third player listed in Group A, is a regular starter for India in Tests and ODIs.

When it comes to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, both have retired from the T20Is and Tests, limiting them to only ODIs, and hence the reason for their demotion. This aligns with the BCCI's revised policy (post the scrapping of A+), prioritising multi-format commitment for the top tier. Kohli and Rohit were previously in the elite A+ category but have now been moved down accordingly.