While Raina has been in poor form of late, scoring just one fifty in the ODI series against South Africa, an immediate exclusion from the list of central contracts was totally unexpected.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced their central contracts list in their Annual General Meeting (AGM) that took place at its headquarters in Mumbai on Monday, said an English news channel.
The biggest surprise? Star batsman Suresh Raina has not been included in the list of players with central contracts!
While Raina has been in poor form of late, scoring just one fifty in the ODI series against South Africa, an immediate exclusion from the list of central contracts was totally unexpected.
Other key team members like ODI skipper MS Dhoni, Test captain Virat Kohli, R Ashwin and Ajinkya Rahane were grouped under 'Grade A', while Rohit Sharma was surprisingly put under Grade B alongside Ambati Rayudu, Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, etc.
The BCCI also announced the central contract list for the women's team, with Mithali Raj (skipper), Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur and MD Thirushkamini making it to 'Grade A'.
BCCI central contracts list:
Grade A (men): MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane.
Grade B (men): Ambati Rayudu, Rohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammed Shami.
Grade C (men): Amit Mishra, Akshar Patel, Stuart Binny, Wriddhiman Saha, Mohit Sharma, Varun Aaron, Karn Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Dhawal Kulkarni, Harbhajan Singh, Sreenath Aravind.
Grade A (Senior Women): Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur, MD Thirushkamini.
Earlier, it was announced that BCCI President Shashank Manohar is all set to replace N Srinivasan as the ICC Chairman, which will mark the end of the latter's influence in cricket. Srinivasan now only remains head of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA).
In an effort to fight against conflict of interest among the players and officials, Roger Binny was removed from the national selector’s panel. Ravi Shastri was removed from the Indian Premier League (IPL) governing council, Rajeev Shukla was retained as the IPL chairman and Sourav Ganguly will replace Anil Kumble as BCCI technical committee chairman.
Related Read: N Srinivasan removed as ICC Chairman; Shastri fired from IPL GC, Binny sacked as selector, Ganguly replaces Kumble
(With inputs from cricketcountry.com)
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