Rohit Sharma's indirect dig

It should be noted that in the recently held press conference, Indian skipper had stated that team management would give a chance to those who want to play Test cricket rather than those who are not interested.

“This is the toughest format. And if you want success and want to excel in this tough format than you need that hunger. It is very important. We will give opportunity to players who have that hunger. You come to know easily the players who don’t have that hunger, or players who don’t want to stay here and play this format. We come to know that,” Rohit Sharma said.

Why Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer?

Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were major part of the Indian cricket team. The comments by Rohit Sharma were directly aimed at Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer, who are under the BCCI's radar for not giving importance to red-ball matches. Ishan skipped the entire season of the Ranji Trophy this year despite being told by the board to play the matches. He did not take part even after Rahul Dravid made two statements on the player.

Amid this, Shreyas Iyer also blatantly lied about the back injury to avoid Ranji Trophy contests for Mumbai. He was exposed by Nitin Patel, who is associated with the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. In an email to the BCCI, he mentioned that Iyer had no fresh injury concerns and was fit to play.

BCCI makes statements about both of them

IPL contracts are very attracting for cricket players but missing out on a BCCI contract is a financial, as well as cricketing, setback. If they are unable to play for the country, it denies them the chance to be in the spotlight. The IPL is held for only two months a year, and domestic cricket, though central to the development of players, doesn’t attract as many eyeballs. With so much of competition for playing in Team India, it also provides a chance to other players to book their berth in place of Iyer and Ishan. So, this might be a huge setback for both the players because out of sight will out of play!

Full list of BCCI contracted players:

• Grade A+ (4 Athletes):

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja

• Grade A (6 athletes):

R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya

• Grade B (5 athletes):

Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal

• Grade C (15 athletes):

Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaekwad, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, KS Bharat, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan and Rajat Patidar