Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan getting their contracts back Pant gets upgrade

That’s a pretty balanced and telling list — no wild surprises, but definitely a few key takeaways! Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan making it back shows the BCCI is ready to give them a clean slate after all the injury breaks and disciplinary whispers. Both are big pieces in the white-ball setup, and this re-inclusion suggests the door is wide open for them, especially with a busy calendar ahead. Rishabh Pant’s return to Grade A is well deserved — what a comeback story. From a near career-ending accident to being central again in all formats, it shows not just his grit but also how highly the team management values his role as a game-changer. Also interesting that Rohit, Virat, and Jadeja remain in the A+ category despite stepping away from T20Is. Clearly the board still sees them as irreplaceable across the formats they’re active in, and especially as core leaders in Tests and ODIs. And Ashwin being off the list after his retirement — expected, but still marks the end of an era. Iyer, meanwhile, is part of Grade B along with Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal and India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav, while Kishan has been added to Grade C. The new entrants in the contracts' list - all currently in Grade C - are Nitish Kumar Reddy, Dhruv Jurel, Abhishek Sharma, Sarfaraz Khan, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana. Shardul Thakur, KS Bharat, Avesh Khan and Jitesh Sharma, who were all in the Grade C list - the lowest of the retainers - last year, have been dropped. The BCCI did not mention the amounts for the four contract categories, but ESPNcricinfo understands that they are likely to be INR 7 crore (A+), INR 5 crore (A), INR 3 crore (B) and INR 1 crore (C). Iyer and Kishan had lost their contracts last year after having made themselves unavailable for the domestic season. While Iyer had informed the Mumbai Cricket Association that he had been suffering from back spasms, Kishan had chosen to play the DY Patil T20 tournament instead of making a return to domestic cricket for Jharkhand. Kishan, too, returned to playing domestic cricket later, turning out for Jharkhand across formats in the 2024-25 season. The BCCI had asked in a statement at the time that "all athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team". Since then, Shreyas has had an excellent run across formats. He has been part of five title wins since March 2024: The IPL win with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as captain aside, he won the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy, the 2024-25 Irani Cup, and the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy titles with Mumbai. He was also a key member of India's title-winning Champions Trophy team, a tournament in which he finished as the second-highest run-getter with 243 runs in five innings. List of contracted players for 2024-25 Category A+ - Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja Category A - Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant Category B - Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer Category C - Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana