MUMBAI: Rising Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Friday replaced out-of-form senior tweaker Harbhajan Singh in the top bracket of BCCI’s list of central retainership contracts, while struggling pacer Ishant Sharma was also demoted from Grade ‘A’ to ‘B’.

Harbhajan and Ishant have spent the better part of this year out of the team struggling for form in whatever chances they have been handed.

The elite Grade ‘A’ features nine players this year, three down from the last season.

With the retired duo of Rahul Dravid and Vangipurappu Laxman out of the equation Ashwin was only new name in the top bracket, the players in which are paid an annual retainership of Rs1 crore.

The likes of Sachin Tendulkar, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir and  Zaheer Khan retained their Grade ‘A’ contracts. Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh completed the top category, all three retaining their contracts.

In Grade ‘B’, the BCCI has offered contracts to eight players, three more than last season with Rohit Sharma being the only one to have retained his contract.

Irfan Pathan has been given a contract along with young players such as Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and Umesh Yadav, all of whom have been elevated from Grade ‘C’.  The players in Grade ‘B’ are entitled an annual retainership of Rs50 lakh.

In the Grade ‘C’ list, a demoted Ravindra Jadeja has replaced S. Sreesanth. Yousuf Pathan, Lakshmipathy Balaji and Ashok Dinda have come in replacing the likes of Jaydev Unadkat.

In all, the BCCI has offered contracts to 37 players, which is the same as last year.

Contracted players: Grade ‘A’: Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin.

Grade ‘B’: Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Irfan Pathan, Umesh Yadav.

Grade ‘C’: Ravindra Jadeja, Amit Mishra, Vinay Kumar, Munaf Patel, Abhimanyu Mithun, Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha, Parthiv Patel, Manoj Tiwary, S. Badrinath, Piyush Chawla, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Sharma, Varun Aaron, Abhinav Mukund, Ashok Dinda, Yusuf Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Lakshmipathy Balaji.—Agencies