Ever since the BCCI central contracts were announced on Wednesday, it has been a topic of debate, especially the exclusion of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan from the list. The duo who were an integral part of the team until recently, were overlooked for the contracts, after their inability to feature in the Ranji Trophy matches, when asked to.
Kishan has been out of the Indian team from Nov-Dec last year, when he opted out midway through the South Africa tour, while Iyer made himself unavailable from the second IND vs ENG Test citing fitness issues. Now, as per a fresh report in the ESPNCricinfo, it seems that Kishan was still considered for the ongoing series, but Kishan made it clear, that he was still not ready.
Then in his absence, it was Dhruv Jurel who got the chance to play for India, and even won the Player of the Match Award in the Ranchi Test. Meanwhile, the southpaw batsman did make a comeback to competitive cricket in the DY Patil T20 Cup in Mumbai, where he scored 19 runs for RBI, upon his return.
BCCI Contracts
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.