The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) made a significant decision by declining to extend Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer central contracts for the 2023–24 season. The pair apparently made the decision to forego the home matches in violation of the board’s repeated orders. Notably, Iyer’s back issue prevented him from playing in Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy 2024 quarterfinal matchup against Baroda.
He was, nevertheless, deemed fit to play by the National Cricket Academy’s (NCA) medical staff. Following his nonattendance at the Ranji match, which apparently infuriated head selector Ajit Agarkar, Iyer was also spotted at the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) academy.
This issue, according to a RevSportz report, was a big reason why BCCI decided not to renew his contract. Notably, Agarkar made the decision to remove Iyer’s name from the list of contracted players because he was in charge of deciding on the contracts in his capacity as head selector.
Iyer has declared himself available for the current Ranji Trophy semi-final match between Tamil Nadu and Mumbai’s BKC Ground, following the entire issue. With two hundreds and three fifties, the 29-year-old had an incredible ODI World Cup 2023, accumulating 530 runs from 11 innings at an average of 66.25 and a strike rate of 113.24.
His performance in Test cricket hasn’t been up to par, though, since 2023, when he averaged just 17 and managed to score just 187 runs in 12 innings. Iyer’s previous 13 innings without a half-century are behind him. The Mumbai-born batsman was dropped because of his poor record after scoring 104 runs in the first two Test innings in the current India vs. England series.
Kishan belonged to Grade C and Shreyas Iyer to Grade B, respectively.
In the meantime, Ishan Kishan has also been removed from the contract list in addition to Iyer. Notably, in March 2023, Iyer was paid INR 3 crore per year under Grade B of the central contract, whereas Ishan Kishan was paid INR 1 crore per year under Grade C. Due to mental exhaustion, the wicketkeeper batsman left the South Africa tour midway after making his only appearance for India in the five-match T20I series against Australia.
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