No Irfan Pathan in BCCI New Contract List

New Delhi: India discard Irfan Pathan has not been given new contract by the Indian cricket board this session. The BCCI which released a new list discarded the Baroda pacer for missing out the domestic season last year.

Irfan had a Grade B contract last year with a retainership of Rs 40 Lakhs.

"Irfan Pathan has to prove by proving his worth in the Ranji Trophy," said a BCCI sources.

"Irfan missed a lot of matches in the last domestic season," said the BCCI source.

Fast bowler Ashish Nehra, who made an impressive comeback to international cricket this year, has been awarded a Grade B contract in the BCCI's list of annual contracts for the 2009-10 season.

Discarded all-rounder Irfan Pathan, who seemed to be missing from the original list, figures in Grade C, the BCCI clarified on Wednesday. He held a Grade B retainership earlier.

India's top nine players, including highest run-getter in both forms of cricket (Tests and ODI) Sachin Tendulkar, openers Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman figure in Grade A (Rs 60 lakh).

Test and one-day discard Rohit Sharma along with Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina, Munaf Patel, Praveen Kumar, Rudra Pratap Singh and Nehra are in Grade B (Rs 40 lakh).

The Gradation Committee of the BCCI finalised the retainership for Indian cricketers for the year from October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010.

Following is the grade-wise allocation of the annual contracts:

Grade A: Retainership of Rs 60 lakh
Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh.

Grade B: Retainership of Rs 40 lakh
Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra.

Grade C: Retainership of Rs 25 lakh
Irfan Pathan, S Badrinath, Wasim Jaffer, Yusuf Pathan, Pragyan Ojha, S Sreesanth, Dinesh Karthik, Amit Mishra.

Grade D: Retainership of Rs 15 lakh
Piyush Chawla, Ravindra Jadeja, Robin Uthappa, Parthiv Patel, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammed Kaif, Virat Kohli, Ashok Dinda, Wriddhiman Saha, M Vijay, R Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Sudeep Tyagi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Abhishek Nayar, Ajinkya Rahane, Manoj Tiwary.