Explained: Why were Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer excluded from central contract list?

The central contract list for the year 2024 is released by the Indian Cricket Board on Wednesday. Like always, they have divided the list into four grades, A+, A, B, and C. While they have included a lot of youngsters in the list, they have excluded two main players from the contract. The exclusion of Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer from the contract list wasn’t that surprising for people because of various reasons.

After the ODI World Cup 2023, Ishan Kishan opted out of the South Africa series due to mental fatigue. However, he hasn’t made himself available for any other series after the World Cup. India has played three series post-World Cup: South Africa, Afghanistan, and England, and Ishan was not a part of any. Also, as per some reports, Ishan was found partying in Dubai and the selectors weren’t happy with this approach. Apart from this, one more reason was Ishan’s lack of communication with the officials. He was also found practising with the Pandya brothers in Baroda rather than playing domestic cricket. Due to several reasons like these, Ishan was excluded from the central contract list.

Moving on to Shreyas Iyer, he has been injured for quite a long time now. However, when he played the first two Test matches for England, he was completely fit. He was dropped from the team for the last three Test matches and was supposed to go back to Mumbai to play the Ranji match quarterfinals. Nevertheless, he skipped the quarter-final clash portraying signs of injury. Later, the National Cricket Academy gave him a clean chit regarding the injury issue and declared him fit. The selectors didn’t like the drama created by Iyer and thus, to maintain some sense of discipline among players, the Board decided to exclude Iyer from the contract list.

India defeated England in a 5-match series, 3-1, with one game to spare

India went on to beat the English team in a 5-match series, in their prime Bazball era. The visitors had no answer to any question the Indian batters or bowlers threw at them. Moreover, this series became extra special for the Indian team as they played it without Virat Kohli, Mohammed Shami, KL Rahul, and Jasprit Bumrah (4th Test).

The youngsters came out and performed extremely well during the entire series which helped the team dominate the English team throughout the series. There were some brilliant innings played by Shubman Gill, Dhruv Jurel, and Sarfaraz Khan which shows the future of Indian cricket.