Amid the raging debate over
Ishan Kishan
and Shreyas Iyer ever since
BCCI
removed the duo from its new list of contracted players because of not featuring in the
Ranji Trophy
, multiple reports have pointed towards the two players making themselves unavailable for their respective state teams despite being fit and not on national duty. Adding to that, a report by ESPNcricinfo says that Kishan refused BCCI's offer to play the ongoing Test series against England when the board got in touch with him.
Kishan had reportedly asked for a break because of personal reasons but was practising on his own and also did not report to the National Cricket Academy or his state unit at Jharkhand.
"ESPNcricinfo understands the team management had got in touch with him (Kishan) during the ongoing Test series against England, but Kishan said he was not ready yet," read the report on the cricket website.
Middle-order batsman Iyer, who was released from India's Test squad because of back and groin issues, was reportedly found to be okay by the BCCI medical team but still didn't make himself available to play the Ranji Trophy.
The BCCI, after issuing a diktat that made it mandatory for all contracted cricketers to play domestic cricket, then removed the names of Kishan and Iyer from the list of its annual contracts released on Wednesday.
Iyer, however, has since been incluced in the Mumbai squad for their Ranji Trophy semifinal against Tamil Nadu while Kishan was seen playing the DY Patil T20 Cup.
With wicketkeeper-batsman KS Bharat failing to contribute consistently with the bat and Kishan not available to replace him in the Test squad, young glovesman Dhruv Jurel made his India debut and grabbed the opportunity with both hands, especially in the fourth Test against England where he played crucial knocks of 90 and 39 not out to win the Player-of-the-Match award in just his second international appearance.
In the year of the ICC T20 World Cup, which is scheduled in June and will be jointly hosted by the US and the West Indies, the controversy can seriously hamper Iyer and Kishan's chances to be selected for the premier T20 tournament, especially after losing the central contract.
Iyer had a good ODI World Cup, scoring 468 runs, and Kishan is considered a white-ball specialist. So not playing the T20 World Cup can hurt their national career, especially in limited-overs cricket.
English (US) ·