After announcing the Central Contract for the 2023-2024 season, there has been much criticism on giving Hardik a Central Contract.
Even the controversy of removing Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan from the central contracts list for failing to appear in domestic.
According to the news, BCCI awarded Hardik Pandya a contract when he agreed to play for Baroda in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20s and Vijay Hazare Trophy. The contract will still be valid if he is not involved in national duty.
On Wednesday, BCCI secretary Jay Shah declared that they would not consider Shreyas and Ishan for the 2023-2024 yearly contract. Due to their absence from the Ranji Trophy, they have been removed from the Central Contract.
Although they both were part of the Indian National team in all three formats of 2023. Despite of encouragement of Jay Shah to players to participate in the tournament, none of them were present on the rounds of Ranji games.
Since from then, Shreyas Iyer made himself available for the semi-final of the Raji Trophy in Mumbai. Also, Ishan Kishan made his comeback in the ongoing DY Patil T20 Cup.
BCCI Official Explained Why Central Contract Has Given to Hardik Pandya
According to the Indian Express reports, there was a discussion on the placement of Hardik Pandya in Grade A. Since he had injured his ankle at the World Cup in October, he was out of action. However, last week, he returned to professional cricket in the DY Patil tournament, playing for Reliance.
According to the top officials of the BCCI, he has stated that Hardik Pandya will participate in domestic matches if they don’t conflict with international. Here is the line said by a BCCI official.
“We have had discussions with Pandya, who has been told to play domestic white-ball tournaments when he is available. At this stage, according to the assessment of the BCCI’s medical team, he is not in a position to bowl in red-ball tournaments.
So playing Ranji Trophy is out of the equation for Pandya. But he has to play other white-ball tournaments if there are no India commitments. If not, he will miss out on a contract.”
