The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) decided to substantially increase the payments for the women’s domestic cricketers during the Apex Council Meeting on Monday. The Indian cricket body has also attempted to introduce pay parity in domestic cricket, and women players are now poised to have their match fees virtually on par with those of the men. According to the revised pay structure, women players will now receive INR 50,000 per day for every domestic one-day and multi-day game they participate in.
According to Cricbuzz, these fees are applied to all the members of the playing XI. On the other hand, non-playing members will receive INR 25,000 for every match they participate in. For T20 games, the fees will be INR 25,000 for every playing XI member and INR 12,500 for players on the bench.
According to the existing structure, senior women in the playing XI are paid INR 20,000, while those on the bench receive INR 10,000.
For junior cricket tournaments, the revised daily pay will be INR 25,000 for the playing XI and INR 12,500 for the reserves. For T20 matches, the fees will be adjusted to INR 12,500 for the first XI and INR 6,250 for non-playing members.
According to Cricbuzz, a BCCI note states, “On average, a senior woman cricketer receives around INR 2 lakh for a season if the team only plays the league stages of senior tournaments.”
As a result of this hike, the income from the season for all players will now increase substantially. With this, the BCCI has taken one step closer to ensuring pay parity for women cricketers. The BCCI currently dishes out INR 60,000 a day to a men’s player who has played more than 40 Ranji games, INR 50,000 to those who have played between 21 and 40 games and INR 40,000 for those who’ve featured in 20 games or fewer.
On the other hand, reserve men’s players receive INR 30,000, INR 25,000, and INR 20,000 in the respective categories.
This pay hike comes almost two months after India‘s maiden World Cup triumph. Earlier this year, Harmanpreet Kaur-led India defeated South Africa in the summit clash of the Women’s World Cup at the Dr DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai to win the 50-over tournament for the first time in their history.
Pay structure for umpires
Not just the women cricketers, the BCCI has also decided to increase the fees for the umpires. The board has proposed that umpires officiating in league matches of domestic tournaments be paid a uniform daily fee of INR 40,000, irrespective of their earlier grouping.
For knockout matches, a higher fee of INR 50,000 to INR 60,000 per day has been proposed, and it will be applied according to the tournament and match status.
The same revised fee structure has also been proposed for the 79 match referees. The match referees will now be paid INR 40,000 per day for league matches and INR 50,000 – INR 60,000 per day for knockout matches.
