If anyone is asked to list down the best and the most down-to-earth cricketers in the history of the sport, there is no chance in hell that MS Dhoni and Rahul Dravid don't make it to that list.

The world is well aware of Dravid's passion for his work and the fact that he never let unparalleled fame get to his head. As long as we can remember, he has stayed true to his humble self. In fact, the man even asked for a cut in his pay just to ensure that the India U-19 team and the support staff are paid equally. Pretty sure we don't need another proof of what a great human being he is.

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And now, following his example, former Indian captain MS Dhoni has also accepted a pay cut in the new contracts that were announced recently by BCCI. Not only did he graciously accept it, he was actually the one who suggested the same for a very logical reason.

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First things first, BCCI recently announced a new contract system and compensation structure for the players. As per that, there are now four categories in Indian Men's team– Grade A+, Grade A, Grade B and Grade C. The A+ category has been introduced for the first time and was the idea of skipper Virat Kohli and Dhoni.

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After several discussions, the players were of the view that the new category i.e. A+ should only have players featuring in all three formats, players who are in the top-10 rankings and have been consistent with the performance. The players in this category will receive Rs. 7 crore annually. Basically, the more they play, the more they get paid.

Now you might be aware that Dhoni does not play in all three formats. So keeping that in mind, he suggested that he should be in category 'A'  where each player would be given Rs. 5 crore annually. It isn't easy to deliberately get your income deducted but Dhoni could not ignore the fact that it won't be fair to other team members. If this doesn't prove how amazing of a human being he is, we don't what will.

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The players are now categorized in the following manner:

A+ category (Rs 7 crore each): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah.

A category (Rs 5 crore each): MS Dhoni, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Wridhhiman Saha.

B category (Rs 3 crore each): KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma and Dinesh Karthik.

C category (Rs 1 crore each): Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel and Jayant Yadav

It should be noted that the annual contracts are for the period of October 2017- September 2018 and the players do not have a permanent position in these categories forever as it is performance-based.