The BCCI announced their central contracts for the upcoming season 2019-20 and dropped the former India captain, MS Dhoni, from this. Dhoni hasn’t played since the World Cup semi-final loss to New Zealand in Manchester. He was earlier in Category A.

The payment structures for all the four categories are the same, where the captain Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah remain in the category A+ contracts and will get a payout of 7 crores.

KL Rahul has been promoted to Grade A for his successful domestic, as well as, international performance. A few new faces have included with the likes of Navdeep Saini, Mayank Agarwal (Grade B), Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, and Deepak Chahar, etc.

Ravichandran Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, and Ishant Sharma, who are placed in Grade A. Meanwhile, Wriddhiman Saha is in Grade B.

Why MS Dhoni excluded from BCCI Annual contracts

However, Dhoni’s exclusion raised many questions but as per the reports, he was informed beforehand about the contracts.

“Let me clarify that one of the top-most BCCI office-bearers spoke to MS and told him about how they are going about in the central contracts. He was clearly told that since he hasn’t played any game in the said period (September 2019 till date), he cannot be included for the time being,“ the official said to PTI on conditions of anonymity.

“Let’s not get into who spoke. The fact is that a player of his stature needs to be told that he is not being awarded a central contract for the time being and it was done in an appropriate manner,” he added.

MS Dhoni can be added back in the BCCI Annual Contract

However, the official further said that if MS Dhoni makes it to the ICC World T20 team in Australia (October 2020, after current contracts’ duration ends) or even before that, he can be added on a pro-rata basis.