Delhi pacer Nehra, who made a fine comeback into the one-day squad after being in the wilderness, did not have a BCCI contract in the previous year.

Uttar Pradesh pacer Praveen Kumar also benefited in the new contracts announced on Wednesday by the BCCI for 40 players as he got a boost from Grade C (Rs 25 lakh) to B.

The Board retained the same nine as last year in Grade A which is worth Rs 60 lakh.

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and champion batsman Sachin Tendulkar, in his 21st international season, were expectedly given Grade A contracts along with Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh.

Tamil Nadu batsman S Badrinath, who was surprisingly given Grade B contract for the 2008-09 period despite having played only a few ODIs, was downgraded to Grade C.

The Board's Gradation Committee met recently to finalise the contracts, BCCI secretary N Srinivasan said.

Irfan's name erroneously left out

The Indian Cricket Board on Wednesday created a flutter by inadvertently leaving out struggling all-rounder Irfan Pathan from the list of contracted players for the 2009-10 season.

While releasing the 40 names who were offered contracts for the period October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010, the Baroda player's name was left out by BCCI secretary N Srinivasan in a media release.