Seven players who were dropped by BCCI from the central contracts

BCCI’s annual central contract list has been released with a few surprises. Players who have done well in this cycle have been rewarded with a contract, while players who have failed to fulfil the minimum criteria have been omitted from the list.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, who is having a sensational Test series against England, has been rewarded with a Grade B contract. Grade C, which is also the last grade, includes T20 mostly specialists like Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, 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.

Seven players dropped by BCCI from contract list

There were seven players who were omitted from the annual central contracts list. According to BCCI, all cricketers who play a minimum of three Tests or eight ODIs or ten T20Is within the specified period will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis. Most of these seven players did not fulfil the criteria.

The names of omitted players are:

1. Ishan Kishan
2. Shreyas Iyer
3. Cheteshwar Pujara
4. Umesh Yadav
5. Shikhar Dhawan
6. Deepak Hooda
7. Yuzvendra Chahal.

Among these players, Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were omitted due to their lack of commitment towards domestic cricket. Both these players missed their respective Ranji Trophy matches despite being declared fit by NCA.

Kishan was on break from cricket since the South Africa tour and used his time away from the game to train with his IPL captain Hardik Pandya instead of playing Ranji matches for Jharkhand. Meanwhile, Iyer was at Kolkata Knight Riders’ pre-season camp when he missed Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Baroda.

Other players like Cheteshwar Pujara, Umesh Yadav, Shikhar Dhawan, Deepak Hooda and Yuzvendra Chahal are out of the national team for a long time. This may have been the reason for their omission from the list.

Full annual central contracts list of BCCI

• Grade A+: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja
• Grade A: R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya
• Grade B: Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal.
• Grade C: Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Rajat Patidar

Read: What turned BCCI against Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer?

BCCI secretary Jay Shah had earlier warned the centrally contracted players not to prioritize IPL over domestic cricket and national duties, otherwise, it can have severe complications. The omission of Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer might be the ‘severe implications’ that Jay Shah was talking about.