Dravid given Grade A deal

Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma and Subramaniam Badrinath are the biggest gainers in the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) new set of annual players' contracts, running up to September 30 2009. Rahul Dravid, who has been struggling for form over the last year, has been retained in Grade A -- the top bracket that will fetch him 60 lakh rupees this year -- according to the new list, released on Monday.
Ishant, Rohit and Badrinath have jumped two slots from Grade D (15 lakh rupees) to Grade B (40 lakh rupees). Other promotions were on expected lines with VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag moving up from Grade B to join Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Dravid. Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Suresh Raina have also moved up from Grade C (25 lakh rupees) to Grade B.
While Ajit Agarkar and Ramesh Powar no longer figure on the new list of 37 players, a notable drop is that of fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, who slipped from Group B to Group C, after missing most of the season due to injury.
Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble are also among the absentees on the list, after retiring from international cricket in October-November this year.
GRADE A (60 lakh rupees): Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Zaheer Khan, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh.
GRADE B (40 lakh rupees): Rudra Pratap Singh, Munaf Patel, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Ishant Sharma, Subramaniam Badrinath, Irfan Pathan.
GRADE C (25 lakh rupees): Piyush Chawla, Wasim Jaffer, Yusuf Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth.
GRADE D (15 lakh rupees): Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Parthiv Patel, Manpreet Gony, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammad Kaif, Virat Kohli, Ashok Dinda, Wriddhiman Saha, Chetanya Nanda, M Vijay, R Ashwin, Shikhar Dhiwan, Sudeep Tyagi.