The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced its central contract for 2023-24. It may be noted that young wicketkeepers Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer have been released from annual contracts. Both these players had given domestic cricket a miss in recent times. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli remains in A+ grade while experienced Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane have been released from their respective contracts.
BCCI Contracted these Players
The list of Grade A+ players includes Rohit Sharma (Captain), Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja; followed by Grade A players R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, and Hardik Pandya. Players in Grade B are Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Akshar Patel, and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Grade C: 15 players are included in this category, among them being Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, and Rajat Patidar.
Ishan and Shreyas have been Keeping Distance from Ranji Matches
Last year, he had left the South Africa tour midway and had reached home at his Barharia village in He was not picked in the side for the home T20 series against Afghanistan too, and for England Test series, he also missed the bus. The Indian team’s head coach Rahul Dravid had also mentioned that Ishaan would have to play domestic cricket if he wants to make a comeback to Team India. But he has stayed away from the Ranji Trophy games too. Shreyas Iyer, on the other hand, had refused to play a day before the Ranji Trophy quarterfinals as he was not completely fit. Board is very angry on these two players for keeping distance from domestic cricket in such a situation.
