The Board of Control for Cricket in India has released a 27-member list of central contract awardees of the 2019-20 season and Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been kept out of the same. The former captain had an ‘A’ category contract in the 2018-19 season.
Dhoni maintains uncertainty
Mahendra Singh Dhoni had retired from Test cricket in 2014 and also had stepped down as captain for the other formats in January 2017. But he continued to be one of the pillars for the Indian national cricket team in limited-overs and was part of the BCCI’s Grade A central contracts last year.
Since the semi-final loss against New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup Dhoni made himself unavailable for selection. His batting approach during the mega tournament especially in the important fixture against the Kiwis was questioned by many. After returning Dhoni went for a sabbatical leave and then denied to return to cricket till date.
There has been still no update of his comeback. Once he was questioned about this a month back in a programme in Mumbai where he asked time till January 2020. Amid all these, Chennai Super Kings ensured that Dhoni would be leading the team in upcoming IPL.
BCCI takes the call on Dhoni
Earlier the BCCI management cleared that Rishabh Pant would be preferred keeper across all formats since there was no clarity on Dhoni. Now his return to the international cricket now officially ooks really dicey after the Board omitted him from the contracts for Indian national cricket team (Senior Men) for the period from October 2019 to September 2020. Dhoni’s retirement speculation keeps making headlines but probably the end is not far away anymore.
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.
