"Face the ‘acid test’ as cricketers" - Sanjay Manjrekar's huge take on Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer's contract termination
Published - 29 Feb 2024, 12:35 AM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 10:27 AM
Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar shared his take on the snub of Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer from the BCCI’s annual contract for the upcoming season. He took a dig at the duo and praised the governing body for rewarding players who want to play tough cricket.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Wednesday (28th February) released the Annual Player Contracts for Team India. While there were some notable entries in the list, seasoned campaigners Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were missing from the list.
Releasing the official statement on the snub of the duo from the Annual Player Contracts for Team India, BCCI stated: “Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were not considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations.”
Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan getting terminated from the BCCI’s annual contract meant that rumours that were floating around turned out to be true. Various media reports claimed that the governing body would snub the duo because they didn’t play domestic cricket.
Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were one of the mainstays of the Indian team in white-ball cricket in the last year. However, them going against the BCCI didn’t do any good to them and resulted in a contract termination for the two talented superstars of the team.
Ishan Kishan despite request by team management didn’t feature in the Ranji Trophy whereas Shreyas Iyer claimed that he has back pain, which NCA termed fake. BCCI secretary Jay Shah gave a stern warning to contracted and India A cricketers last week that not participating in the ongoing Ranji Trophy will not be tolerated and the result of that is now for everyone to witness.
As BCCI released the contract list for the season 2023-24 (October 1st, 2023 to September 30th, 2024) and snubbed Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer, Sanjay Manjrekar reacted to it. He believes that BCCI did the right thing by putting players to face the ‘acid test’.
Taking to his Twitter account, he stated: “Well done to @BCCI for rewarding players who want to play the tough cricket and only for one reason…to face the ‘acid test’ as cricketers.”
The reports in Indian Express have claimed that Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan are likely to not feature for the team in the T20 World Cup 2024. However, the doors for them are still not closed as they need to feature in domestic cricket to be considered for the national selection.
Annual Player Contracts for Team India 2023-24 season; Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan miss out
Here are Annual Player Contracts for Team India 2023-24 season
Grade A+ (4 Athletes)
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A (6 Athletes)
R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.
Grade B (5 Athletes)
Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Grade C (15 Athletes)
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.
The BCCI will also be giving fast Bowling contracts for Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Umran Malik, Yash Dayal and Vidwath Kaverappa.
