MS Dhoni may miss out on top central contract
What's the story?
After the Committee of Administrators (CoA) approved a pay hike for India cricketers, MS Dhoni looks set to miss out on top central contract. Reports from India Today suggest that instead of the three grade contract, CoA have proposed a four grade formula with A+, A, B and C before the much-awaited pay hike.
Under the revised guidelines, players playing all three formats for India will fall under A+ and the likes of MS Dhoni, who has retired from Tests will have to miss out on the top category. The likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who haven't played limited-overs due to the rotation policy will still be in the higher grades as their ICC rankings in other formats will be kept in consideration.
In case you didn't know...
On November 30 the CoA had a meeting with Indian captain Virat Kohli, coach Ravi Shastri and former captain MS Dhoni in New Delhi to discuss a pay hike for the Indian cricketers. That meeting turned out to be frutiful as the CoA approved a pay hike for the Indian cricketers and promised that players, even those who play just one format will be adequately compensated.
The heart of the matter
Players who have been rested or haven't played due to injury will be taken into consideration and while the shortlist will be done by the selectors, subjective evaluation will be minimal as set guidelines need to be followed to decide whether players qualify for a grade or not. The guidelines will next be submitted to the BCCI finance committee before the final call is made.
What's next?
It will be interesting to see the players who feature in each contract bracket and how much each contract is actually worth.
Author's take
While the idea of ensuring that the players who are playing all three formats for the country should be appreciated, there also needs to be a way in which players eligible for all three formats but aren't picked due to a variety of reasons are also considered. While someone like Dhoni only plays two formats, Ashwin and Jadeja only play one and have recently become merely Test regulars, so there needs to be a way in which everyone is fairly compensated.