Indian Cricket Board announces Central Contract list for 2023-24, Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer omitted from

The Indian Cricket Board has announced the annual player retainer ship 2023-24 for India’s senior men’s team. As per reports earlier suggested, Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer have been excluded from the Central Contracts list. It is a big call taken by the Indian Cricket Board as both these players were a part of India’s scheme of things in all three formats.

However, the board was not happy with their reluctance to play domestic cricket which indirectly indicated that they were not much interested in playing the red ball format for India. Despite repeated warnings by the Indian Cricket Board, they didn’t pay much heed which resulted in the axing of these players from the Central Contract list.

Curtains on Iyer and Kishan’s T20 World Cup chances?

This could be seen as a big jolt to the international careers of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan as losing the contract could be a major roadblock to their comeback into the Indian team. The selectors give priority to those who are centrally contracted with India while making a squad and the axing of both these youngsters at this point could mean curtains to their T20 World chances irrespective of their performance in the IPL. 

The yearly player contracts for Team India will be effective from October 1, 2023, until September 30, 2024. The contract list consists of four grades and the players are divided into these categories accordingly.

Grade A+ category (7 crore annually):  Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja

Grade A category (5 crore annually):  R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, and Hardik Pandya

Grade B category (3 crore annually): Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, and Yashasvi Jaiswal

Grade C category (1 crore annually): 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

Why were Dhruv Jurel and Sarfaraz Khan not there in the contract list?

Players who fulfil the requirement of competing in at least 3 Tests, 8 ODIs, or 10 T20Is during the designated timeframe will be included in Grade C on a proportional basis. Owing to this, Dhruv Jurel and Sarfaraz Khan will be added to Grade C if they take part in the Dharamsala Test Match.