In a telling statement, BCCI excluded India regulars Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan from their central contracts for the 2023-2024 season.
The duo should hold themselves responsible as they were guilty of not playing domestic cricket and were instead getting ready for IPL 2024.
Kishan has openly defied not only the BCCI but also Head Coach Rahul Dravid by staying away from the Ranji Trophy despite being asked to.
Similarly, Iyer skipped Mumbai's Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Baroda citing injury but Nitin Patel, the head of sports science and medicine at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, in an e-mail to the BCCI selectors, confirmed that the Mumbai right-hander was 'fit' to play.
Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar and his team have been categorical that players not on national duty have to play domestic cricket and not just look forward to the IPL, a view also echoed by Dravid and captain Rohit Sharma.
'Please note that Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were not considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations,' a miffed BCCI said in its media release.
However, all is not over for Kishan and Iyer. They can still make a comeback to the Indian team for the T20 World Cup in June and other tournaments in the future and get themselves back in the central contracts list.
But it all depends on how they fare in IPL 2024.
Having pulled out of the South Africa tour in December, Kishan's best bet is the IPL where he will play for Mumbai Indians. And it is clear that he is desperate to prove a point in the IPL, having spent the last few weeks working on his T20 game.
If he has a good tournament with the bat and gloves, then he will certainly find himself in the reckoning for the T20 World Cup.
There is no doubting the ability of the left-hander, who is among a select group of only 10 players to have hit a double century in ODIs, and he has done well with the bat in recent IPL seasons.
He was perhaps frustrated not getting enough opportunities in the ODI World Cup and then saw K L Rahul take over the gloves in the Test series in South Africa, while Jitesh Sharma played ahead of him in the T20I series.
At 25, he certainly has a lot of years at the top in him and should certainly be making wise career choices.
On the other hand, Iyer has been one of the first choice middle order batters for India across formats. He was a regular feature in the ODI World Cup, then featured in the T20Is against Australia and in the Test series in South Africa.
While he has been struggling with back spams, he was dropped after not making most of starts in the first two Tests against England. And he did his cause no good when he opted out of the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals. If he had played and done well in that match, he might have even made a comeback for the Dharamsala Test.
Iyer is also likely be back in the mix for the T20 World Cup if he does well for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL.
It should not be long before Iyer and Ishan also get back their names in the central contracts list.
The BCCI has made it clear any players who features in 'a minimum of 3 Tests or 8 ODIs or 10 T20Is within the specified period will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis'
Additionally, cricketers who meet the criteria of playing a minimum of 3 Tests or 8 ODIs or 10 T20Is within the specified period (October 1st, 2023 to September 30th, 2024) will automatically be included in Grade C on a pro-rata basis.
There is no doubt that Kishan and Iyer certainly achieve that mark even if they feature only in white ball games.
One thing is clear, the BCCI have laid down the marker and going forward no player will take domestic cricket for granted even if they are chasing lucrative contracts in the cash-rich IPL.
