North India Statesman
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News India Live, Digital Desk: Indian women’s cricket team has recently created history by winning the World Cup, after which the discussion regarding the earnings and salary of women cricketers has intensified. Taking a historic step towards gender equality, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has equalized the match fees of male and female cricketers, but there is still a big gap in their annual salary. Let us understand it in simple language.
Complete equality in match fees
In October 2022, BCCI had implemented “Pay Equity Policy” i.e. equal pay policy. Under this policy, now both male and female cricketers get equal fees for playing international matches.
- One Day (ODI) Match: ₹6 lakh per match
- T20 (T20I) matches: ₹3 lakh per match
This is a huge and commendable step, because before this, women cricketers used to get very less match fees.
There is a big difference in the annual contract (salary)
Apart from match fees, BCCI also gives an annual contract to its key players, which is called retainership fee. This is where a big difference is seen in the earnings of male and female cricketers.
Annual salary of male cricketers:
BCCI divides male cricketers into four grades:
- Grade A: ₹5 crore
- Grade B: ₹3 crore
- Grade C: ₹1 crore
Annual salary of women cricketers:
At the same time, there are only three grades for women cricketers and their salary is also much less than that of men:
- Grade B: ₹30 lakh
- Grade C: ₹10 lakh
It is clear that while the top male cricketer earns Rs 7 crore annually, the top female cricketer earns Rs 50 lakh annually, which is 14 times less.
Why is there this difference?
Several reasons are believed to be behind this difference, including commercial earnings from men’s cricket, viewership and the value of broadcasting rights. However, with the advent of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) and big wins like the World Cup, the popularity of women’s cricket is increasing rapidly, which can be expected to reduce this gap in the future.
In short, the BCCI has taken a historic and commendable step by equalizing match fees but there is still a long way to go to achieve true parity in terms of annual salaries.
