Sending a strong message that not playing in the Ranji Trophy unless you are on national duty or are unfit will not be tolerated, the BCCI excluded India’s middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer and wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan from the list of 30 centrally contracted players.
Iyer missed the last league match and the quarterfinal of the Ranji Trophy, citing back pain. He has made himself available for the Ranji Trophy semifinal against Tamil Nadu from March 2 at the MCA’s ground in BKC in Mumbai.
Kishan, on the other hand, came back midway from India’s tour of South Africa due to ‘personal reasons’ last year. The explosive ’keeper-bat missed the Test series against England and didn’t play in the Ranji Trophy for Jharkhand. Earlier this month, BCCI secretary Jay Shah said that all the contracted players were obliged to play in the Ranji Trophy for their domestic teams, unless they were on India duty or were recovering - from injuries - at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).
Middle-order batsmen KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and pacer Mohammed Siraj have all been elevated to the Grade A category while ‘keeper-bat Rishabh Pant, who has been out of action since January 2023 while recovering from a horrific road accident, finds himself in Grade B.
List of contracted players
Grade A+: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A: R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed 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: Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and Vidwath Kaverappa.
