Ganguly may lose BCCI contract

The new office bearers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India will have a tough task on their hand and one of their first assignments is going to be drawing the new contracts for the players of the Indian team.

Shashank Manohar, the new president, N Srinivasan, the secretary, and K. Srikkanth, the chairman of the senior selection committee, will make the list of players who will be handed central contracts, and more importantly their categories.

Currently, the board offers four grades of annual contracts. The highest, which is the A contract, comes with a retainer of Rs 60 lakhs, while the B category retainership is Rs 40 lakhs, C Rs 25 lakhs and finally D of Rs 15 lakhs. Any player who represents India while not being under a central contract automatically gets placed in the D category.

Sourav Ganguly, currently having an A contract, was left out of the Irani Cup squad after being discarded from the one-day squad last year. His Test spot seems under threat and it would be interesting to see if he retains his contract.

Rahul Dravid is no more in India's scheme of things as far as one-dayers go. According to precedent, Dravid and Ganguly could drop down a level as someone like V.V.S. Laxman, who has a B contract.

But Anil Kumble, who has also been missing from action in the shorter version has an A contract. So exceptions can be made to Dravid and Ganguly, considering their stature.

However, India's one-day and Twenty20 skipper MS Dhoni, pacer Zaheer Khan and Sachin Tendulkar, who has been struggling with fitness after the Australian tour earlier this year, are likely to retain their A contract.

There may be good news for Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag, who are now regulars in all versions of the game. Both are likely to be upgraded from their B contract, which was given last year as they were missing from the ODI team for some time