Why is MS Dhoni on a Grade 'A' contract?

What’s the story?

Ramiz Raja, member of the MCC Cricket Committee, discussed the degrading sanctity of the longest format of cricket in Asian countries, pointing to former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s ‘A’ grade contract by the BCCI and Shahid Afridi’s ‘A’ grade contract in 2016 as examples of boards not giving test cricket enough importance.

"You have to acknowledge and respect the status of Test match cricket and it has to come from the cricket boards, in Asia specifically. For example, MS Dhoni retired from Test cricket yet got the A-grade contract from the BCCI, Shahid Afridi retired from Test cricket yet got the A-grade contract from PCB,” the former Pakistan opener said.

In case you didn’t know…

Every year, a country’s top cricketers get international contracts from the country, whether or not they get game time. These are divided into Grade A, B and C in India, with the top players, such as test skipper, Virat Kohli, getting ‘A’ grade contracts.

Traditionally, players who play solely the shorter formats, like Yuvraj Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey and Ashish Nehra are awarded grade ‘B’ contracts at the most, but generally are awarded ‘C’ grade retainers. Since 2014, when Dhoni retired from Test cricket, he has still been awarded the ‘A’ grade contract.

The details

Test cricket’s biggest foe is cricket boards themselves. Ramiz Raja has pointed out just another example of cricket boards’ shoving test cricket under the bus, by equating a solely limited overs player to Test quality players. While MS Dhoni and Shahid Afridi achieved a lot for their country, they had both retired from the pinnacle of the sport, making their getting awarded ‘A’ grade contracts unfair to Test regulars.

Ramachandra Guha, too, expressed his concerns at Dhoni’s getting the highest retainer in the letter he wrote to the BCCI on his resignation. But before this becomes a debate about Dhoni and Afridi, let me segue to something more important.

Test cricket is under attack and the MCC Cricket Committee (yes another committee), a group of ex players and representatives, are trying to find a solution to that. The issues facing test cricket include: Timings– mornings are terrible hours for attending or viewing a game, Scheduling– The cricket calendar is too congested for enough Tests, lack of context, and a lack of interest from Asian countries and their boards.

Raja, legendary English captain Mike Brearley and former Black Caps’ skipper Brendon McCullum were some of the MCC Cricket Committee members to say they were worried for the longest format, and said boards would need better scheduling to improve television ratings. Lastly, they also said that Asian boards would need to remunerate test players better, doing justice to the pinnacle of the sport. Giving Grade ‘A’ contracts to test players only is just the first step to that.

What’s next?

For Test cricket, a Test League starting in 2019 seems to be a strong first step. It was also suggested, in the MCC Cricket Committee meeting, that a two month Test window could work. Assuming it means that there will be around two such windows a year, it would effectively create two ‘seasons’ for test cricket, something that will bring regularity to fixtures.

A further step could be to make test cricket four days long, and schedule regular day-night games from Thursday to Sunday night on interesting pitches in a league of sorts. The committee also expressed the need for cricket to expand globally, making it an Olympic sport. This would bring the game to places like China and the USA, increasing the game’s reach exponentially.

Author’s take

Cricket boards act primarily in short-sighted and political ways, especially in the sub-continent. Having a committee with relevant parties such as the MCC Cricket Committee is a good way to advise the ICC on matters their boards know and care little about. The MCC Cricket Committee need to be given a bigger role in cricket administration, and their suggestions need to be taken more seriously.

The current cricket administration is full of old men with little interest in protecting the sanctity of the sport. With an interest only in their own bank accounts or their country’s domestic league, they have choked Test cricket of its every dime. It’s high time that change in a positive direction is made, before it becomes inviable for even the big nations to host tests anymore. As a result, players like MS Dhoni should not be given ‘A’ grade contracts as a symbolic gesture and a financial one, a message to kids everywhere that being a Test cricketer is special.