BCCI announces enhanced retainership for top players

Putting an end to the long drawn negotiations on the contentious contracts issue, the BCCI on Thursday announced an enhanced annual retainership amount for a pool of 33 players with top grade cricketers being offered a whopping Rs 60 lakhs.

Having already showered the Twenty20 World Cup winning team with hefty cash incentives, the board carried its magnamity onto the central contracts as well by increasing the retainership amount in existing three categories while also introducing a fourth grade.

Paceman Zaheer Khan was the lone new name in the elite Grade A, which will get Rs 60 lakhs as retainership, an increase of Rs 10 lakhs from the earlier contract.

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Yuvraj Singh and current ODI captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni were the others in the Grade A while there were eight players in Grade B which had a retainership amount of Rs 40 lakhs.

VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, S Sreesanth, Dinesh Karthik, RP Singh and Virender Sehwag have been clubbed in Grade B, which has also seen a hike of Rs 5 lakhs.

Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Powar, Munaf Patel, Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla and Suresh Raina are the players who find a place in Grade C which has a retainership of Rs 25 lakhs.

The young Rohit Sharma, who starred in India's Twenty20 World Cup campaign and Joginder Sharma were among 11 other players who have been accommodated in the Group D introduced for the first time.

Manoj Tiwary, Ishant Sharma, Ranadeb Bose, Mohammad Kaif, Cheteshwar Pujara, Parthiv Patel, S Badrinath, Aakash Chopra and Yusuf Pathan are the other players in that grade which offers a retainership of Rs 15 lakhs.

The BCCI said in a release that a player, who was not offered a retainership and was selected to play for India in Tests or ODIs, would be placed in the Grade D.

"A player in Grade D, if he plays 5 Tests or 15 ODIs in a year, will be placed in Grade C from that date and will be paid retainership on the pro-rata basis," the release said.

According to the earlier contracts, players in Grade A got an annual retainership of Rs 50 lakhs, while the amount was Rs 35 lakhs and Rs 20 lakhs for Grades B and C respectively.

The contracts were finalised by the BCCI's gradation committee, comprising vice-president Shashank Manohar, treasurer N Srinivasan and former president IS Bindra.

Difference between the BCCI officials and the players after the World Cup debacle led to a stalemate on the contract issue forcing the board to extend the 2005-06 contracts by another year.

In the earlier negotiations, Manohar had taken a tough stand and had even called for performance-linked contracts, meaning that players would be rewarded for victories and penalised in case of defeats.

ICC World Twenty 20, 2007/08 : India beat Pakistan by 5 runs

Man of the Match: Irfan Khan Pathan
Man of the Series: Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi
There's something about India and World Cups in South Africa. The last time India played a World Cup here, it reached the final.

Australia were too good in that 2003 final, but this time there was no denying a hungry Team India, minus big names but overflowing with infectious exuberance. Holding their nerve to win a match that made a rollercoaster ride look like a yawn, the team won the final by 5 runs and wowed the world. Then it was time for a victory lap around the field, tricolour held proudly aloft even as skipper MS Dhoni bared his chest.

It was a fitting finale to a tournament that has been high on thrills, and a fitting triumph for a team that believed in itself when hardly anybody else did. Led by a cool captain who urged them to just enjoy themselves, the players went out and had a blast — and soon, all of India had joined the party.

"I'd like to thank my young team, which has been amazing," said a beaming Dhoni after the match. "No one expected us to win, and now we deserve a big celebration." What made him choose Joginder Sharma for the final over?

"Bhajji wasn't sure, he wasn't getting his yorkers 100% right. I thought I'd give the over to a bowler who wanted to make a mark at the international level. It really didn't matter to me if we didn't win, because we'd given it our best," said Dhoni.

Rival skipper Shoaib Malik thanked the people of Pakistan "and Muslims all over the world" for their support before acknowledging that "we played badly and the Indians bowled superbly."

The BCCI, quick on the ball, announced a bonus of $2 million to the team and Rs 1 crore to Yuvraj Singh for his six sixes in an over. Generous? Not when you consider that the players have restored pride to Indian cricket.

Many have also redeemed themselves. None more so than man of the match Irfan Pathan, bowling again with the swing, verve and canniness that made him such an exciting prospect before he underwent a horrendous slump in form. He's back, and clearly loving it.

"We deserve it, specially after what happened at the (50-overs) World Cup," exulted Irfan. It was a doubly special day for the Pathan family, with Irfan's elder brother, Yusuf Pathan making his debut after Virender Sehwag was ruled out with injury.
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All about cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball sport contested by two teams, usually of eleven players each. A cricket match is played on a grass field, roughly oval in shape, in the centre of which is a flat strip of ground 22 yards (20.12 m) long, called a pitch. At each end of the pitch is a construction of three parallel wooden stakes (known as stumps) driven vertically into the ground, with two small crosspieces (known as bails) laid across the top of them. This wooden structure is called a wicket.

The bowler, a player from the fielding team, hurls a hard, fist-sized, cork-centred, leather-covered ball from the vicinity of one wicket towards the other. The ball usually bounces once before reaching the batsman, a player from the opposing team. In defence of the wicket, the batsman plays the ball with a wooden cricket bat. Meanwhile, the other members of the bowler's team stand in various positions around the field as fielders, players who retrieve the batted ball in an effort to stop the batsman scoring, and if possible to get him or her out. The batsman, if he or she does not get out (for example if the bowled ball hits the wicket, or if a fielder catches the ball off the bat before it bounces), may run between the wickets, exchanging ends with a second batsman (the non-striker), who has been waiting near the bowler's wicket. Each completed exchange of ends scores one run, and the match is won by the team that scores more runs.

Cricket has been an established team sport for hundreds of years. It originated in its modern form in England and is most popular in the present and former members of the Commonwealth. Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world.[1][2][3] More than a hundred cricket-playing nations are recognised by the International Cricket Council.[4] In the countries of South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, cricket is the most popular sport. It is also a major sport in England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean, which are collectively known in cricketing parlance as the West Indies. There are also well-established amateur club competitions in countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Kenya, Nepal and Argentina, among others.

The sport is followed with passion in many different parts of the world. It has even occasionally given rise to diplomatic outrage, the most notorious being the Basil D'Oliveira affair which led to the banning of South Africa from sporting events. Other examples include the Bodyline series, played between England and Australia in the early 1930s, and the 1981 underarm bowling incident involving Australia and New Zealand.
source: wikipedia