Kuldeep Yadav's childhood coach, Kapil Dev Pandey, has expressed dissatisfaction with the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) decision to award the star spinner a Grade B contract for the 2023-24 season.
Kuldeep Yadav has been a key player in the Indian cricket team across all formats for the past seven years, featuring in multiple ICC events. Yadav's childhood coach believes that the spinner deserved a promotion to Grade A.
Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Surya Kumar Yadav, and Rishabh Pant have been awarded Grade B contracts for the senior men's team for the 2023-24 season. Among all these five players, apart from Kuldeep only Axar plays in all three formats for India, but not that consistently.
Speaking to IANS, Kuldeep Yadav's childhood coach said:
"Kuldeep is perhaps one of the best in the world at the moment. He should have been promoted to Grade A. He has been performing consistently well, but I am sure he will achieve that place soon."
"Whatever, opportunity he is getting currently, he is delivering tremendously. I spoke to him a few days back and told him to keep up the spirit and don’t bother about anything else and focus only on the game."
Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer absent from BCCI's list of central contracts
Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were excluded from BCCI's central contracts due to their reluctance to participate in domestic red-ball cricket, particularly the Ranji Trophy.
Complete list of BCCI contracts for 2023-24 season
Grade A+: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Grade A: R Ashwin, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya.
Grade B: Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Grade C: 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.