The warning from Jay Shah and the BCCI officials has come true as Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan have been dropped from the central contracts for 2023/24.
Despite both players being part of the World Cup 2023 squad and being all-format India players over the past year, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan didn’t find a place in the latest BCCI central contracts for 2023-24.
On February 28, the BCCI 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 BCCI central contracts
The BCCI didn’t hide revealing the reason for the duo’s exclusion.
The BCCI stated, “Please note that Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were not considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations.
“The BCCI has recommended that all athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team.”
Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer both have skipped the Ranji Trophy 2024 matches so far. Earlier this month, the BCCI had asked players – not mentioning anyone – to not skip the Ranji Trophy’s last round of matches, but both players didn’t appear for their respective teams.
BCCI is unhappy with players not playing Ranji trophy to prepare for the IPL. Ishan Kishan was spotted training with Hardik Pandya in Baroda after taking break from international cricket since December last year. Kishan, though, marked his return through the DY Patil T20 Cup, which started only a few days after the league phase round of Ranji Trophy concluded.
Jay Shah had reportedly warned players for “severe implications” for skipping Ranji matches if fit and not selected for India. And his statement has been retained by the BCCI as both Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer have been dropped from BCCI central contracts.
It’s not the money that they are losing, but more than that, they seemed to have lost the trust of the board and the management, and will need to pull up their socks for a comeback in the Test team in particular.
BCCI announced central contracts for Indian men players for 2023-24:
Grade A+ -Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A -R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.
Grade B -Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Grade C -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.
Fast bowling contracts recommendations – Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and Vidwath Kaverappa.
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