Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer to lose BCCI central contract after ignoring Jay Shah’s Ranji Trophy warning: Report

BCCI secretary Jay Shah had warned centrally-contracted India players last week against prioritising the Indian Premier League (IPL) over domestic cricket.

Amid Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer and Deepak Chahar’s reluctance to participate in the ongoing Ranji Trophy season, Shah had cautioned all India cricketers that ignoring domestic cricket could lead to “severe implications”. However, with the players still turning a blind eye to the warning, a report on Friday indicated that both Ishan and Iyer are likely to lose their BCCI central contracts.

According to a report in The Times of India, the Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee of the BCCI have already picked a list of centrally contracted players for the 2023-24 season and the names of Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer are absent.

“The selectors, led by Ajit Agarkar, has almost finalised the list of centrally contracted players for the 2023-24 season too, which the BCCI will announce soon. Kishan and Iyer are likely to be excluded from that list, as both haven’t been playing domestic cricket despite the BCCI’s diktat to do so,” a source told the newspaper.

Ishan last played for India in November 2023, in a T20I game against Australia at home. Later in December, during India’s tour of South Africa, where he was slated to retain his wicketkeeping spot in the Test series, the left-handed batter had withdrawn, citing mental health reasons.

While questions on if, when and how he could make a comeback to the Indian team have been making rounds in almost every press conference of the Indian team, Ishan has remained out of action. India head coach Rahul Dravid clarified a few times that for the youngster to make a return to the national side, he needs to show some gametime. But Ishan did not participate in any of the Ranji Trophy league games for Jharkhand. He was, however, spotted in Baroda, training with Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya for IPL 2024, along with Krunal Pandya.

Iyer, on the other hand, missed Mumbai’s last league game against Assam and was not in action in the quarterfinal match against Baroda on Friday. According to a report in The Indian Express on Thursday, the middle-order batter informed Mumbai Cricket Association that he was unavailable for selection due to a back injury. However, National Cricket Academy (NCA) head of sports science and medicine, Nitin Patel, in an email to the MCA selectors, declared Iyer was ‘fit’.

“Shreyas Iyer was fit and available for selection as per the handover report of the Indian team after the 2nd Test match against England. There are currently no fresh injuries reported as well after his departure from Team India,” Patel wrote in the email.