BCCI excluded Iyer and Kishan from central contracts for ignoring instruction to play domestic cricket.
The duo lost the annual contracts after failing to adhere to the board's mandate of playing domestic cricket when not on national duty.
Days after their ouster from the central contracts list, batting legend Sunil Gavaskar sympathised with Mumbai batter Iyer but issued a noteworthy statement about Kishan's non-participation in the ongoing Ranji Trophy for Jharkhand.
In his column for the Mid Day, Gavaskar mentioned that Shreyas Iyer informed the team management about his inability to play the third Test against England in Rajkot. The middle-order batter was later left out of the last three Test against England.
Iyer had experienced back spasms leading up to the third Test. Before the England series, he had featured in Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy match against Andhra. However, the right-hander didn’t turn up in Mumbai’s final group stage game and then the quarter-final after getting dropped from the Indian team.
"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On the other hand, Ishan Kishan had withdrawn from the Test series in South Africa last December, citing personal reasons. Since then, the wicketkeeper-batter has not been picked in any of the Indian squads.
Despite repeated reminders from head coach Rahul Dravid and BCCI secretary Jay Shah, Kishan didn't make himself available for Jharkhand in the Ranji Trophy 2023-24. It was only last week that the southpaw returned to competitive action via the DY Patil T20 Cup.
"Nobody still knows why Kishan has not turned up for Jharkhand in the Ranji Trophy, while at the time of writing this column, Iyer was in the Mumbai team to play the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy. 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," Gavaskar added.
Earlier, Shreyas Iyer was placed in the Grade B category of the BCCI central contracts while Ishan Kishan was slotted in the Grade C category.