As former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni maintains his silence on his return to cricket, fans from across the world are left guessing on the wicket-keeper batsman’s future plans.
It has been learnt that Dhoni has been dropped from BCCI’s latest annual contract list for the period of October 2019 to September 2020. Dhoni has been on a sabbatical post ICC Men’s World Cup 2019 and has not spoken of his return to the field. Although, earlier India coach Ravi Shastri gave an insight on Dhoni’s plan to retire from ODI format but will continue with T20 format.
There are four grades of BCCI contract – A+, A, B and C. In the last annual contract, Dhoni was in Grade A, however, his name is not included in any of the grades this time.
BCCI Central Contract Grading (October 2019 – September 2020)
Grade A+ : Rs. 7 Crore
Grade A: Rs. 5 Crore
Grade B: 3 Crore
Grade C: 1 Crore
Chief Selector MSK Prasad has always maintained his stand and stays firm on selection being based on the level of performance and same will be the case in Dhoni’s matter
India captain Virat Kohli along with opening batsman Rohit Sharma and pacer Jasprit Bumrah have retained their position as A+ players.
KL Rahul has moved up a grade from Grade C to Grade B while Wriddhiman Saha claimed the ladder to Grade B from Grade C. Mayank Aggarwal has been included in Grade B.
Deepak Chahar, Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur, Washington Sundar and Navdeep Saini are in Grade C contract while Khaleel Ahmed, Ambati Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik have been dropped from the list of annual central contract.