Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan found themselves excluded as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced its centrally-contracted players for 2023-24. The decision was taken amid the controversy surrounding both cricketers ignoring the board’s directive to play Ranji Trophy. While Kishan did not play for Jharkhand despite opting out of the Test series against South Africa citing personal reasons, Iyer made himself unavailable for Mumbai due to injury – a claim that was dismissed by National Cricket Academy (NCA). The exclusion means that both cricketers will not receive the money that comes with the central contracts. While BCCI did not mention any specific figures in this year’s announcement, the list for the 2022-23 year provides a sneak peek into the salary brackets.
A player listed in Grade A+ earns Rs 7 crore, followed by Rs 5 crore in Grade A, Rs 3 crore in Grade B and Rs 1 crore for players in Grade C.
While Kishan was placed in Grade C for the previous year, Iyer belonged to Grade B .
Another big setback for both Iyer and Kishan will be the lack of access to NCA in Bengaluru. As part of the centrally-contracted players list, they had free access to the facilities. However, if they want to use the NCA facilities now, they will need to get clearance from their respective state associations.
Central contracts for 2023-24:
Grade A+:Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A: R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.
Grade B: Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Grade C: 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.
Fast bowling contracts: Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and Vidwath Kaverappa.
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