Mashrafe Mortaza and Shakib Al Hasan, two of the pillars of Bangladesh cricket in the last decade, were dropped out of the new list of centrally contracted players announced by the Bangladesh Cricket Board on Sunday (March 8). 

The BCB, after a meeting of its Board of Directors, finalized a list of 16 players to be included in the national payroll with only seven of them offered both red and white-ball contracts for the period concluding December 31, 2020. 

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The decision to drop Mashrafe from the list was taken following his announcement to quit ODI captaincy, having already retired as a player from Tests and T20Is, whereas the call on Shakib was due to the back-dated two-year ban imposed on him by the ICC late last year for failing to report a corrupt approach. 

Shakib can only resume his international duties post October 29, 2020, which could rule him out of the T20 World Cup in Australia that starts 10 days earlier. 

Not only Shakib and Mortaza, Imrul Kayes, Abu Hider Rony, Syed Khaled Ahmed, Rubel Hossain and Shadman Islam were also axed from the contract list. 

Mahmudullah and Mustafizur Rahman were snubbed out of Test contract list and only offered partial white-ball contracts. 

Tamim Iqbal, who has been appointed the new ODI captain, batsmen Liton Das, Nazmul Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Mithun and spinners Taijul Islam and Mehidy Hasan were the seven players who got a contract for all formats.

The Test-only contract list features skipper Mominul Haque, spinner Nayeem Hasan, pacers Abu Jayed and Ebadot Hossain while Mahmudullah, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mustafizur Rahman, Afif Hossain and Mohammad Naim were given contracts for just the ODIs.