Dhoni dropped from India's list of 27 contracted cricketers
- 16 Jan 2020
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was dropped from India's list of 27 centrally contracted players on Thursday.
Dhoni has not played international cricket since the World Cup last year, but coach Ravi Shastri recently said the wicketkeeper-batsman could be in contention for the T20 World Cup in Australia this year if he performs well in the Indian Premier League.
Dhoni, 39 in July, has played for India since 2004.
The former captain of the national side, who serves as an honorary lieutenant colonel in the army reserves, spent part of last year with his unit in strife-torn Kashmir — missing an ODI tour of the West Indies.
He has not featured in any series since and was not named as part of the squad to tour New Zealand later this month.
He quit Test cricket in 2014 but continued to be India's batting mainstay in limited-overs cricket despite passing on the captaincy to Virat Kohli in 2017.
However Dhoni may be eyeing a last hurrah at the Twenty20 World Cup in October and November in Australia.
He is expected to lead the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this April-May.
The Indian selectors have been grooming young stumper Rishabh Pant, 22, to fill Dhoni's gloves.
Captain Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah were given contracts of Rs70 million (about $980,000) and were placed in the A+ grade by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The contracts are from October 2019 to September 2020.
Lokesh Rahul got a raise of Rs20 million and was among 11 players awarded A grade contracts worth Rs50 million.
Contracted players:
Grade A+ 70 million Indian rupees (around $980,000): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah.
Grade A 50 million Indian rupees (around $700,000): Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Lokesh Rahul
Grade B 30 million Indian rupees (around $420,000): Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal
Grade C 10 million Indian rupees (around $140,000): Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar
Associated Press