Substantial changes are expected in the payments being offered to India's top cricketers under the annual central contracts plan.
The figures doing the rounds at the ongoing Asia Cup tournament in Dambula, Sri Lanka, suggest that Rs 50 lakh will be offered for Grade A cricketers, while the next and bottom-rung of players will get Rs 35 lakh and 20 lakh respectively.
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The contracts are expected to be signed next month after the cricketers return from the Asia Cup.
The new figures are a revision from the stated position of Rs 60, 30 and 15 lakh that the cricketers and Board of Control for Cricket in India had agreed to last month, after which a copy of formal contracts was handed over to players in Chennai last week.
A change is being considered because a few players are not happy with the terms of the deal and the money that has been put on the stake bar, according to informed sources.
A couple of cricketers felt there is too much gap between the money offered for successive grades. They were also not sure whether the criteria of performance, and not seniority, is the right way to go about it. They also felt the figure of 50 per cent for non-playing players is too less.
If it surprised the Board, it absolutely stumped the senior players who were involved in negotiations for the central contracts for over two years and had hammered out a great deal of financial and legal interpretations.
BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya had to hastily cancel the gradation committee meeting in Kolkata on July 9 after he was informed by a very senior cricketer more time was needed to put their proposal in place.
The three senior players actively involved in negotiations had little idea that the juniors were not happy with the contract and were stumped when their stand was conveyed to them at the very last minute.
Since then the players have recovered from the loss of face in front of the Board and thrashed out a process which has found support from all the cricketers.
In this worked-out solution, the seniors have taken the lead by letting go Rs 10 lakh from their proposed annual retainer and splitting it equally between the Grade B and C cricketers.
Though the Gradation Committee meeting is yet to take place and the names of cricketers in different categories yet to be decided, it is learnt the senior cricketers have proposed eight cricketers for Grade A and six each for subsequent categories.
The eight seniors for Grade A could include Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendukar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan.
The next six cricketers for Grade B include Ashish Nehra, Laxmipathy Balaji, Irfan Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif and Ajit Agarkar.
The final six names for Grade C may be Parthiv Patel, Hemang Badani, Aakash Chopra, Murali Karthik, Rohan Gavaskar and Aavishkar Salvi.
As things stand now, seniors have been able to bring the juniors round to the idea that they should insist not on seniority being the criteria for gradation but performance in a given calendar year.
Juniors reportedly fell in line and accepted performance as the guiding principle in gradation after the seniors pointed it out to them they could be waiting for the next three years to move to the top category if they insisted on seniority being the main criteria.
