Deepti Sharma promoted as India announce contract for 2022-23

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the central contracts for the Indian women's cricket team for the year 2022-23. The contracts are categorized into Grade A, Grade B, and Grade C as usual. Although the retainership amount of NR 50 Lakh, INR 30 Lakh, and INR 10 Lakh that was in place for the 2020-21 season hasn’t been mentioned in the governing body’s release



Grade A contracts have been awarded to Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, and Deepti Sharma. The latter has been promoted from Grade B to Grade A, while Poonam Yadav, who has been out of the squad for some time now, has been omitted from the retainership altogether. Total number of retainers have come down from 19 to 17.



The Grade B category has seen some new additions with Renuka Singh Thakur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, and Rajeshwari Gayakwad in this category.



Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Punam Raut, Shikha Pandey, and Taniya Bhatia have been excluded from Grade B. Mithali and Goswami have retired from international cricket, hence been omitted. Renuka is the new addition to the category as she earns her maiden contract, while Ghosh has been promoted from Grade C.

Meghna Singh, Devika Vaidya, Sabbineni Meghana, Anjali Sarvani, Pooja Vastrakar, Sneh Rana, Radha Yadav, Harleen Deol, and Yastika Bhatia have been awarded contracts under Grade C. Radha has been demoted from Grade B, while Pooja Vastrakar and Harleen Deol have retained their contract in this grade. Mansi Joshi, Arundhati Reddy, and Priya Punia have been excluded from Grade C.



Since the 2020-21 season, India have had an interesting few months with their first round exit from ICC Women’s World Cup 2022 in New Zealand and then Silver Medal performance at the Commonwealth Games 2022 before the semi-final exit at the T20 World Cup 2023.



Grade A: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma



Grade B: Renuka Singh Thakur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Rajeshwari Gayakwad



Grade C: Meghna Singh, Devika Vaidya, Sabbineni Meghana, Anjali Sarvani, Pooja Vastrakar, Sneh Rana, Radha Yadav, Harleen Deol, Yastika Bhatia