You can put the entire hullabaloo to rest! There were a lot of speculations and dialogue on social media when former India captain MS Dhoni was awarded a Grade-A contract and not Grade A+.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced Annual Player Contracts for Indian Senior Men team and Indian Women team on March 7, 2018. Where players like Virat Kohli, and Shikhar Dhawan among others were awarded the Grade A+ contract, Dhoni’s name was missing in the newly-constituted category.

In a recent development, former Indian legend Rahul Dravid opted for a pay-cut after India’s U-19 World Cup triumph in New Zealand. The BCCI had then decided to pay the U-19 Indian coach a reward of Rs. 50 lakhs. However, the gentleman that he is, Dravid asked the BCCI to half his reward so that everyone in the support staff is paid equally.

Taking a cue from the former batting great, Dhoni also followed the suit. As he is not a part of India’s Test team, he opted for his salary-cut and asked the Board to put him in Grade A category – this was revealed by current BCCI Chairman Vinod Rai.

This comes as another selfless act by the ace cricketer, who had led the Indian team with an example, during his tenure as Indian captain. The recent act of opting for a pay-cut is another testimony to the fact that, how selfless Dhoni has been throughout his career.

The Committee of Administrators (CoA), appointed by Supreme Court of India, introduced two new categories, i.e. (i) Grade A+ for the Senior Men team, (ii) Grade C for the Senior Women team; this year. The new Grade A+ contract will see a player Rs. 7 Cr, whereas Grade A will see a player earn Rs. 5 Cr.

As soon as the news of the announcement of Annual Players Contract broke out, there were a lot of cricket fans who took to social media, Twitter and Facebook and voiced their displeasure of Dhoni’s exclusion in the top bracket. Dhoni has been a beacon of change in Indian cricket for a long time now. It will be great if other people learn from it.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 08, 2018 07:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).