The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Thursday announced the Annual Player Contracts for Indian senior women's team for the 2022-23 season with captain Harmanpreet Kaur, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana, as well as Deepti Sharma being put in Grade A. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, and Deepti Sharma are categorised in Grade A. Renuka Thakur, and Jemimah Rodrigues are added to the Grade B group with three other players. On the other hand, players including Sneh Rana, and Yastika Bhatia along with seven other teammates are added to Grade C. Earlier, BCCI had announced that the women's team will get their match fees at par with the men's team. However, they haven't mentioned about salaries of the women cricketers in the annual contract in the recent release.
As per the last announced annual contract by the BCCI for the 2020-21 season, the women players were awarded Rs 50 lakh (Grade A), Rs 30 lakh (Grade B), and Rs 10 lakh (Grade C). Notably, the men's annual contracts are divided as Grade A+ - Rs 7 crore, Grade A - Rs 5 crore, Grade B - Rs 3 crore, and Grade C - Rs 1 crore. Pacer Shikha Pandey and leg-spinner Poonam Yadav are the notable exclusions.. Poonam hasn't represented India in any format since March 2022 while Shikha hasn't played ODIs since 2021 and has been in-and-out of the T20I squad as well. Incidentally, Poonam finds herself going from having a Grade A contract last year to being removed from the 17-member list altogether. On the other hand, Shikha held a Grade C contract in the last cycle. Wicket-keeper Taniya Bhatia and Arundati Reddy are the other major exclusions from the contracts list.Meanwhile, Jemimah Rodrigues and dynamic keeper-bat Richa Ghosh earned promotions up to Grade B while fast bowler Renuka Singh Thakur moved straight in to the second pay grade with her first central contract. All three players have been a key part of India's limited-overs fixtures over the past 12 months
