- The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on March 7, 2018 introduced an A plus category in the central contracts for which only five players were picked.
- A plus category: An A plus category players are; Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Shikhar Dhawan along with pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah.
- Benefits: A plus category will ensure these players annual contracts worth seven crore rupees each.
- Basis: The Committee of Administrators felt that the performance and position of Indian Cricketers need to be recognised with the fee structure comparable to the best in the world.
- The new Annual Player Contracts: The new Annual Player Contracts will be operative from October 2017 to September 2018.
- A category: In the new payment structure, former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and senior off-spinner R Ashwin were relegated from the top-paid bracket to the A category along with Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Wridhhiman Saha. These seven players would be eligible for a contract of five crore rupees each.
- B category: The B and C categories comprise seven players each.
- The B category features KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma and Dinesh Karthik. They will be entitled to contracts worth three crore rupees each.
- C category: In Grade C will be Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel and Jayant Yadav. They will be eligible for contracts worth one crore rupees each.
- Women players: Among the women, World Cup stars Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana have been kept in the top bracket, under which the annual contract is worth 50 lakh rupees.
