Indian women’s team players’ annual contracts were announced recently, and the list saw many changes with the promotion of some players and the exclusion of some. The key highlight of the new contract is the promotion of the sensational player Shafali Verma, who has been promoted to Grade B from Grade C.
“Shafali is seen as the biggest superstars that we will have in years to come and hence it wasn’t a surprise that she got elevated to Grade B from C. Punam Raut was rewarded for her good show in the South Africa series and she has also been promoted to Grade B,” a senior BCCI official said.
With the total number of contracted players cut short to 19 from 22, pro players like Veda Krishnamurthy, Ekta Bisht, Anuja Patil, and Dayalan Hemalatha have been excluded from the list. Richa Ghosh has made her entry in the list and has been included in Grade C. Notably, out of the 4 players excluded, Bisht has been selected for the upcoming tour of England.
Annual Player Contracts for Team India (Senior Women) for the period from October 2020 to September 2021 are finally here 👇👇 pic.twitter.com/hSnNtzs4AM
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) May 19, 2021
Joining Verma in the promotion were Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Punam Raut, who also gained their spot in Grade B from Grade C. Both Gayakwad and Raut performed brilliantly in their series against South Africa. The two were also nominated for the ICC Player of the Month Award for the month of March.
The Indian women’s team will be flying to the UK, next month, for their stint against England Women. The two teams will face each other in a one-off Test match, a three-match ODI, and as many T20Is. The games begin on June 16th, 2021.
Grade A (Rs 50 lakh): Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Poonam Yadav
Grade B (Rs 30 lakh): Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Deepti Sharma, Punam Raut, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Shafali Verma, Radha Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Taniya Bhatia, Jemimah Rodrigues
Grade C (Rs 10 lakh): Mansi Joshi, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Harleen Deol, Priya Punia, Richa Ghosh.
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