Mohammad Kaif might have failed to find a place among the 42 players picked for the Challenger Trophy but the middle-order batsman has retained his place on the list of 41 contracted cricketers announced by the BCCI on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the most consistent ODI bowler for India in the recent times, Ashish Nehtra, is back in the fold, bagging an annual retainership of Rs 40 lakhs for the year 09-10. Nehra takes the place of Irfan Pathan in Grade B, with the out-of-favour all-rounder was relegated to Grade C.

Irfan’s name was not in the initial list that the board released, but they later clarified that it was left out by mistake.

The four entrants on the list are Abhishek Nayar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Ajinkya Rahane and Manoj Tiwary, who figure on Grade D

Contracts

Grade A (Rs 60 lakh): Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh.

Grade B (Rs 40 lakh): Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra.

Grade C (Rs 25 lakh): S Badrinath, Wasim Jaffer, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Pragyan Ojha, Sreesanth, Dinesh Karthik, Amit Mishra.

Grade D (Rs 15 lakh): Piyush Chawla, Ravindra Jadeja, Robin Uthappa, Parthiv Patel, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammad Kaif, Virat Kohli, Ashok Dinda, Wriddhiman Saha, M Vijay, R Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Sudeep Tyagi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Abhishek Nayar, Ajinkya Rahane, Manoj Tiwary.