Former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been left off the Board of Control for Cricket in India's list of centrally-contracted players.
Dhoni has not played international cricket since the 2019 World Cup. He is not part of the squad for the ongoing ODI series against Australia. He has not been selected for the five T20Is against New Zealand later this month.
Despite the contract snub, Dhoni is still in contention for a spot in India's squad for the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year. India have been grouped with England, South Africa, Afghanistan and two qualifying teams for the 2020 T20 World Cup (previously known as the World Twenty20).
India won the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007. They beat Pakistan in that final. India reached another final in Bangladesh in 2014, but lost to Sri Lanka.
Prior to this year's T20 World Cup, Dhoni will play for the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League.
“A good IPL, and Dhoni puts himself into contention for the T20 World Cup. Then it is the selectors' job to see what they want to do, but if he has a great IPL then he puts himself into contention,” India head coach Ravi Shastri told CNN-News18 earlier this month.
“Would you put it beyond anyone if a guy is performing and the guy who has never had fitness problems in his entire career? For me, Dhoni is like Kapil Dev. Kapil never had a problem right through his career.
“You will have to see who will do the job at what number, what role, who is the best guy. You will take experience into account. You will take youth into account. You will take flamboyance into account.”
Contract list
- Grade A+ (INR 7 cr): Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah.
- Grade A (INR 5 cr): Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul.
- Grade B (INR 3 cr): Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal.
- Grade C (INR 1 cr): Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari,, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar.
