It's disappointing not to see Cheteshwar Pujara's name in A-plus list, laments Niranjan Shah

After the BCCI released the fresh list of contracted international cricketers, former BCCI and Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) secretary Shah has expressed his disappointment that Pujara has not been awarded an A-plus category. The list which was released on Thursday has got only three players - Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah in the topmost category while Pujara, who plays for India only in Tests, continues to remain in Grade A. Shah also opined that this shows that the Committee of Administrators (CoA) is not giving importance to Test cricket.

Pujara was the star performer for the Indian team in the historic series win in Australia where the Saurashtra batsman scored 521 runs which also included three hundreds.

"It was disappointing not to see Pujara's name in A-plus list. It's highly unfair that Tests are not given importance by the COA. After enjoying such a fantastic season in international cricket, Pujara deserved to be in the A-plus bracket. The way the CoA is running the game in India, the less said the better,” Shah told TOI.

Meanwhile, a top BCCI official has come in support of the decision of keeping Pujara in Grade A as he pointed out that it was decided earlier after a discussion with the team management that the players have to play all the three formats to get into the topmost category of the BCCI contract list.

"I fail to see a reason for this debate. There was a template set last year after discussing with the team management. It was agreed upon that only those players who are automatic choices in all the three formats, and are ranked in the top 10, will be eligible for a Grade A-plus contract. This isn't a subjective decision. Pujara still has an A grade contract, after all," a BCCI official told TOI.