File photo of Ishan Kishan© AFP
Ishan Kishan has constantly been in the news for the past one month since he took a break midway into India’s Tour of South Africa. While the BCCI was supportive of his decision to take a break, what many reports have suggested is that Ishan Kishan’s lack of game-time after the Tour ended may have raised a few eyebrows. Despite Indian cricket team coach Rahul Dravid saying that Ishan Kishan needs to play some form of cricket, to make a national team comeback, Ishan Kishan has been absent from the scene. Despite the ongoing Ranji Trophy campaign, Ishan has not been competing in the premier domestic competition and rather training on his own.
These have led to speculation about Ishan Kishan’s future in Indian cricket.
Asked if Kishan Kishan would find himself out of BCCI retainership (he has a grade C annual contract of Rs 1 crore), a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity: “No discussions have taken place as of now regarding central contracts.”
With the ICC T20 World Cup in the Americas, starting from June 1 and India playing their opening game on June 5 in New York, the workload of India’s core group of players during the IPL, which is going to be tentatively scheduled between March 22 to May 26, will be very important.
However, it is understood that no Indian players are supposed to be given any instructions about workload management during IPL as it is also not fair to the franchises, who are paying top dollar to star Indian players.
“They are being paid highly and they can’t pick and choose games for franchises. But yes, for all those centrally contracted and targetted players (next lot), the franchise’s support staff will have to regularly provide fitness update to the NCA Sports Science head Nitin Patel,” an official told PTI.
It is understood that BCCI might send the players, whose teams don’t qualify for the IPL play-offs, earlier to New York, while those who play the knock-out stages join them after the tournament gets over.
With PTI inputs
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