Indian batters Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan have been in the news lately for being dropped from the BCCI central contracts list for the 2023-24 season. Both of them paid the price after failing to adhere to the board's mandate of playing domestic cricket.
Iyer, who was left out of the Test side after the second match against England in Vizag, didn't make himself available to play for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy for his side's final group stage game and then the quarter-finals citing back pain.
However, an email from Nitin Patel, the head of sports science and medicine at the National Cricket Academy, later declared the middle-order batter fit.
On the other hand, Kishan, who recently returned to competitive cricket in the ongoing DY Patil T20 Cup, too didn't feature in a single Ranji Trophy match.
The BCCI, in its release, while announcing the list of centrally contracted players for the 2023-24 season confirmed that both Shreyas and Ishan weren't considered for the contract in the current round of recommendations.
The release also added, "The BCCI has recommended that all athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team."
Amid the recent development, former Pakistan wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal has backed the BCCI’s decision to terminate Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan’s central contracts.
“BCCI has made the right call, taking such strict action early on to control the damage. If they had given them a levy and handed them central contracts, a lot more players would have started playing on their own terms in the future. India have given a message to their players to ensure that nobody even thinks of doing something like this the next time. This is proof of good management. Nobody is bigger than the game,” Akmal said in a video posted on his YouTube channel.
Reacting to Iyer's reported reluctance to play Ranji matches, Kamran Akmal stated that a senior player should set better examples for the youngsters.
"Shreyas Iyer played the first two Tests of the series. If you don't value the cricket because of which you made it to the national team, what message is it going to give to all the youngsters?"
Shreyas Iyer, however, has since been included in the Mumbai squad for their Ranji Trophy semifinal against Tamil Nadu while Ishan Kishan recently returned to competitive action via the DY Patil T20 Cup.
