Nobody still knows why Kishan has not turned up…: Sunil Gavaskar on Ishan and Shreyas Iyer losing BCCI central contracts

Sunil Gavaskar is of the opinion that he still does not understand that why Ishan Kishan did not turn up for his Ranji Trophy side Jharkhand. Both Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were on Wednesday stripped off their central contracts by the BCCI for failing to play domestic cricket even after not featuring for the national side.

“The BCCI announced the list of the contracted players a few days back and as expected, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were excluded from the contract list presumably for not playing Ranji Trophy cricket. Nobody still knows why Kishan has not turned up for Jharkhand in the Ranji Trophy,” the 74-year-old wrote in his column for Mid Day.

The former World Cup winner, however, hinted that the punishment might have been too harsh on Iyer, writing that the player hadn’t refused to play Ranji, pointing out that he had also played in the tournament before the England series.

“Iyer had also played in the Ranji Trophy game as asked by the Indian team management just before this Test series started, so it’s not as if he has refused to play the Ranji Trophy at all. He did miss the quarter-finals, but that was also the time he had informed the team management of his inability to play the third Test match due to some pain in his back if he batted for some length of time. However, the trainers at the NCA certified that his markers were clean and they found him fit to play. That seemed to have gone against Iyer. Threshold of pain is an individual thing and no trainer can judge that,” Gavaskar wrote.

On Wednesday, in an unprecedented move, which sent a strong message to those skipping domestic cricket, BCCI had dropped Iyer and Kishan from the annual contract list.

The decision comes after the two players refused to turn up for their domestic sides despite BCCI secretary Jay Shah sending a strongly-worded letter to all the contracted players to feature in domestic cricket. Hardik Pandya, another player who hasn’t played any cricket since the World Cup, and was recovering from an ankle injury, though keeps his place in Grade A.

It is understood that the call to drop both the players, who were integral part of the Indian team across all formats in 2023, was taken by the secretary after the selectors recommended so.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.