Indian cricketers finally entered into a contract with the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Wednesday by signing for graded payments after a two-month delay.

Twelve out if 17 leading players, who were offered contracts earlier, signed the papers, BCCI secretary S K Nair said.

Those who signed the contract are: Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh (all in Grade A), Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan and Ashish Nehra (all in Grade B) and Murali Karthik (Grade C).

Yuvraj Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Lakshmipathy Balaji (all in Grade B), Parthiv Patel and Akash Chopra (Grade C) will sign later.

The one-year contract is effective October 1, 2004. The list of the cricketers and their gradation would be reviewed after a year.

As per the contract, players in Grade A would get Rs 50 lakh [five million] per year, those in Grade B Rs 35 lakh [3.5 million] and in Grade C Rs 20 lakh [two million].

Besides the annual contractual payment, players will also receive match fees as per usual practice, but it will be paid to only eleven players playing a particular match.

The match fees at home will be Rs 200,000 for a Test and Rs 160,000 for an ODI. Abroad, it will be Rs 240,000 for a Test and Rs 185,000 for an ODI.

The Board had finalised the contracts in the last week of September. The players, however, could not sign the papers then as they left for Holland to play in a tri-series and returned in October end after the Champions Trophy in England.

Uncertainty within the BCCI due to controversy over its elections on September 29 and 30 also delayed the process subsequently.

BCCI officials held an informal meeting with the players in Kolkata on Tuesday during which it was decided to complete the formality of signing the contract.

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Contracts ready for Indian cricketers