BCCI secretary Jay Shah revealed that chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar took the final decision to drop Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer from the list of centrally contracted players. Kishan and Iyer lost their contracts after refusing to play in domestic matches despite a BCCI directive.
Iyer did play for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, including the semi-finals and final, but Kishan took a long break from the South Africa tour and was unavailable until the IPL. Iyer, however, ended up on the receiving end when it was revealed that he had gone to a KKR camp in Mumbai during a Ranji Trophy match involving his own team.
Jay Shah stated:
“Check out the laws. I am simply the convener of the selection meeting; Ajit Agarkar makes the final decision. Even in the case of Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer, who did not play domestic cricket, it was his choice to remove them from the central contracts list. All I do is execute. Additionally, new players like Sanju (Samson) have been added to the team. No one is above the team.”
Before the contract snub, Jay Shah said he fully supported the chief selector's decision to take action against players who don't meet the captain and team management's demands for participation in domestic cricket. Shah said he had spoken to the players when they were excluded:
“I did indeed speak with them. Even Hardik (Pandya) stated that he was prepared to play in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy if the BCCI was considering him for white-ball cricket. Even if a player chooses not to participate, they will still be required to play.”