The Indian cricket board is considering handing star Test batsman Cheteshwar Pujara the topmost central contract in recognition of his efforts in Test cricket this season.

Pujara’s batting has been the deciding factor for India in the Test series in Australia with the middle order batsman scoring more than 500 runs with three centuries. India posted a mammoth 622 in the fourth Test in Sydney thanks to an epic 193 from Pujara as the No1 Test side closed in on a series victory.

Pujara is the only Indian batsman to score fifty or more in each of India’s four away Test wins in 2018 and his efforts in Sydney have all but guaranteed India’s first Test series victory in Australia.

According to the Press Trust of India, the board is considering upgrading Pujara’s central contract from ‘A’ to ‘A-plus’.

According to the report, chief administrator Vinod Rai is likely to discuss the idea with the chief selector MSK Prasad and the team management of captain Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri.

According to the revised central contract system, a player in the ‘A-plus’ category gets 70 million rupees (Dh 3.6m) while those in ‘A’ category, where Pujara is right now, get 5o million rupees (Dh 2.6m).

“Pujara’s brilliant performance deserves recognition. The CoA chief will discuss with the team management and the chief selector to check if the rule for all-format specialists in the top bracket can be relaxed,” the report quoted a senior BCCI official as saying.

As of now, Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are in the ‘A-plus’ category.