agencies NEW DELHI, Apr 28: 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. |