'Not fair BCCI' - Twitter fumes after MS Dhoni is dropped from the annual contract list

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the central contracts for the Indian cricket team for the period October 2019- September 2020. The contract, as always has been bracketed under four layers- A+, A, B, and C. While Indian captain Virat Kohli, vice-captain Rohit Sharma, and fast-bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah have been duly awarded the A+ contracts worth Rs 7 Crore, former Indian captain MS Dhoni is notably missing.

The Grade A contract worth Rs 5 Crore has been awarded to the likes of ace-spin bowling duo of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, swing-king Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Test specialists Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, white-ball openers KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant and the pace bowling duo of Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami.

As far as Grade B [Rs 3 Crore] is concerned, five cricketers- Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, and Mayank Agarwal- made their way into the list while the likes of Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, and Washington Sundar have been awarded the Grade C contract worth Rs 1 Crore.

MS Dhoni last played for India in World Cup 2019 semi-final

This is the first time since MS Dhoni made his debut for India that the champion wicketkeeper-batsman’s name isn’t in the BCCI’s annual contract list. The former World Cup-winning skipper last played for India in the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup where he was, unfortunately, run-out at the hands of Martin Guptill, squashing the Indian hopes to dust.

Since then, speculations have galore around MS Dhoni’s International future, even as the former captain has continued to stay tight-lipped. India coach Ravi Shastri has time-and-again iterated that Dhoni’s future in T20I cricket for India will solely depend on how he and his contemp0raries fare in the upcoming Indian Premier League.

But with MS Dhoni not getting the annual contract, the writing may just be on the wall for the former captain. As expected, the news of Dhoni getting dropped from the contract list spread like wildfire on social media and the fans slammed BCCI for the same.

Here’s how Twitter reacted:

https://twitter.com/ImMayankB/status/1217734853765951488?s=20