The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the new player contracts for India senior men players Former India captain MS Dhoni was dropped from the BCCI’s list. This move by the BCCI has raised fresh doubts on the future of the veteran wicketkeeper-batsman. Dhoni has not played since the World Cup semi-final loss to New Zealand in 2019.
Not only Dhoni but Dinesh Karthik, Khaleel Ahmed, and recently-retired Ambati Rayudu have also been dropped from the central contract. The BCCI announced the central contracts for the period of October 2019 to September 2020. Dhoni was in the A category, which fetches a player Rs 5 crore, until last year.
The BCCI has now included four players — Navdeep Saini, Mayank Agarwal, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar and Deepak Chahar in the list of annual player contracts.
Skipper Virat Kohli, his deputy Rohit Sharma and top pacer Jasprit Bumrah have retained the highest A+ bracket of Rs 7 crore.
BCCI Central Contracts for 2019-20:
- Grade A+ (INR 7 cr): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah
- Grade A (INR 5 cr): Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant
- Grade B (INR 3 cr): Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal
- Grade C (INR 1 cr): Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar.
The news of Dhoni getting dropped from the contract list irked fans who slammed BCCI for the same.
India will play the T20 World Cup in Australia this year. But withMS Dhoni left out of the annual contract list, it remains to be seen whether he will be a part of it.
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