KOLKATA, Sept 26: India's cricket board introduced long-awaited central player contracts on Sunday. A committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chose 17 players for the one-year contracts , which will take effect from Friday, president Jagmohan Dalmiya said.

The players have been graded in three categories with annual salaries of Rs5m ($108,930), Rs3.5m ($76,250) and Rs2m ($43,570). Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, V.V.S. Laxman and Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh are placed in the top category.

Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Asish Nehra and Lakshmipathy Balaji are in the next. Parthiv Patel, Aakash Chopra and Murali Kartik are in the third level.

The players would also receive Rs200,000 ($4,360) for a home Test and Rs240,000 ($5,230) for each away Test. For one dayers the fees would be Rs160,000 ($3,485) and Rs185,000 ($4,030) respectively. -Reuters