In a major development, the BCCI has terminated the central contracts of India cricketers Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer. BCCI on Wednesday announced the Annual Player Contracts for Team India (Senior Men) for the 2023-24 season (October 1st, 2023 to September 30th, 2024).
“Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were not considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations,” BCCI said in a statement on Wednesday.
The development comes in wake of BCCI secretary Jay Shah cracking the whip on players skipping domestic cricket.
“They (players) have been informed on phone already and I’m going to write letters as well that if your chairman of selectors, your coach and your captain are asking for it then you will have to play red-ball cricket,” Shah had said in Rajkot during an event.
BCCI has recommended that all players should give precedence to taking part in domestic cricket whenever they are not representing the Indian team.
Ishan last appeared in a T20I for India in November 2023 and only made his competitive return on Tuesday while playing in the ongoing DY Patil T20 Cup in Mumbai.
He had left the India squad midway through their five-match T20I series against Australia post ODI World Cup to take rest but later flew to South Africa for the white-ball leg of the tour in December.
The wicketkeeper-batter didn’t feature in a single game in South Africa before returning home and wasn’t part of India’s three-match T20I series against Afghanistan at home either. He wasn’t picked for the ongoing five-Test series against England too.
Despite not playing any international cricket for months, Ishan didn’t feature in Jharkhand’s Ranji Trophy campaign and instead chose to train with Hardik Pandya in Baroda, working on his fitness.
On the other hand, Iyer has been a regular fixture across formats and played in the first two Tests of the England series before being dropped. He didn’t play in Mumbai’s quarterfinal clash against Baroda as they qualified for the semi-finals.
However, on Tuesday, Iyer was named in their 16-man squad for the semi-final clash with Tamil Nadu staring in the first week of March.
Grade A+ (Four Players): Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A (Six Players): R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.
Grade B (Five Players): Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Grade C (15 Players): Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaekwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan and Rajat Patidar.
Meanwhole, players who meet the criteria of playing a minimum of three Tests or 8 ODIs or 10 T20Is within the specified period will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis.
For example, Dhruv Jurel and Sarfaraz Khan, having played two Test matches so far, will be inducted into Grade C if they participate in the Dharamsala Test Match, i.e., the 5th Test of the ongoing series against England.
The selection committee has also recommended Fast Bowling contracts. Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and Vidwath Kaverappa have been included in this list.
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