5 Players who deserved a central contract from the BCCI but didn’t get it

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), on January 16, 2020, announced the list of its centrally contracted players of the Indian Men’s cricket team for the upcoming season October 2019-September 2020.

There were some new names in the list like Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, and Washington Sundar included in the list, some of the names were also excluded, who failed to perform admirably in the previous calendar year. 27 players were divided into four categories, with Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Rohit Sharma included in the topmost A+ Category which nets them a sum of INR 7 crore.

However, there were some names that deserved to be included in the other categories as well but were ignored by the Indian cricket board for a variety of reasons.

Here are five such players who should have been given a central annual contract by the BCCI:

1. Shivam Dube

The Mumbaikar Shivam Dube showed signs of making up for the loss of Hardik Pandya as a fast-bowling all-rounder in the Indian team when he came into prominence for smoking five sixes in an over in the finals of the Mumbai T20 league. Boasting of a good record in domestic cricket, Dube was the one player who impressed with both bat and ball.

He made his T20I debut against Bangladesh and his ODI debut against West Indies. He made a half-century in the 20-over format versus the Windies, while picked three wickets against Bangladesh in the series-deciding encounter. He showed his hitting prowess against the Men in Maroon but failed to somehow convince the selectors.

His non-inclusion from the BCCI’s annual contract list may be a signal that the board wants more consistent performances from him with the ball and some responsible innings from the extremely talented big-hitting all-rounder and until Hardik makes a full recovery, Dube has chances in New Zealand to impress. Though, he is short of the qualification criteria of 3 Tests or eight ODIs; Dube has played 8 T20I matches, which may get him the nod for a contract in the coming time if good performance continues.