Shafali Verma’s annual contract has been retained despite the promising youngster having lost her place in the team while youngsters Shreyanka Patil and Amanjot Kaur have been handed their first central contract as the BCCI announced the women’s central retainer list for 2024-25 on Monday.
While the 16-player list announced by BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia through a media statement did not specify the contract amount, The Hindu has confirmed that the amount for the three brackets has remained unchanged at Rs. 50 lakh, Rs. 30 lakh and Rs. 10 lakh each for Grade-A, B and C respectively.
Shafali has been out of the national team set-up since October last year, but finds her place in Grade-B intact. The list has been pruned from 17 members in 2022-23 (the 2023-24 contracts were not made public) to 16.
While captain Harmanpreet Kaur, her deputy Smriti Mandhana and veteran all-rounder Deepti Sharma have been retained in top tier, Grade-B has four players and Grade-C nine.
The list includes five new entrants, including off-spinner Shreyanka and all-rounder Amanjot. The others are Titas Sadhu, Arundhati Reddy and Uma Chetry. Of the six omissions, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, the left-arm spinner, is the most notable absentee who was in Grade-B the last time around.
The men’s contracts for the ongoing cycle are yet to be finalised.
The list: Grade-A (Rs 50 lakh): Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma.
Grade-B (Rs 30 lakh): Renuka Thakur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh, Shafali Verma.
Grade-C (Rs 10 lakh): Yastika Bhatia, Radha Yadav, Shreyanka Patil, Titas Sadhu, Arundhati Reddy, Amanjot Kaur, Uma Chetry, Sneh Rana, Pooja Vastrakar.
Published – March 24, 2025 08:45 pm IST