Dhoni dropped from BCCI's list of centrally contracted players

Wicket-keeper batsman MS Dhoni has been dropped from BCCI's list of centrally contracted players, while Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah have been listed in the A+ category.

The 38-year-old Dhoni is currently enjoying some time away from the game and he last played competitive cricket during the World Cup.

He had to endure criticism for his slow batting approach during India's matches in the tournament. Especially in the games against England and New Zealand (semi-final), he had to bear the brunt of netizens who deemed him as the reason for the Men in Blue's loss.

BCCI released the list of centrally contracted players on Thursday for the period from October 2019 to September 2020. With Dhoni not featuring in the list, his future ahead will come under severe speculation.

A+ category players will receive Rs 7 crore, A category players will get Rs 5 crore while B and C category players will get Rs 3 and Rs 1 crore respectively.

Here is the list of players under each category:

A+ category: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah

A category: Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Chesteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant

B category: Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal

C category: Kedar Jadhav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Hanuma Vihari, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, and Washington Sundar.

India is currently playing Australia in a three-match ODI series. The Men in Blue lost the first ODI, and the next match will be played on January 17 at Rajkot.