BCCI Player Contracts: Glaring Misses, Women Still Shortchanged

Just like every year, before the end of the financial year, the BCCI’s bosses get together to hand out the player contracts for the October-September window. Same as last year, the CoA made the decision on the salaries this time around as well, and while there are some glaring misses in the men’s list, the highest salary slab among the women has seen no change this year.

Smriti Mandhana, the highest-ranked women’s ODI cricketer in the world, Mithali Raj, the world’s highest-scoring women’s cricketer in the history of the sport, and Harmanpreet Kaur, India’s T20 captain all get a yearly retainer of Rs 50 lakh which is half of what the lowest grade of the men’s cricket team make.

Of course, the revenue gathered from the men’s team and that from the women’s team will have many many crores between them and therefore, the money that goes back to the players will be starkly different.

There’s also the point to be made in favour of the COA that shook up the stagnant waters of India’s women’s cricketers' salaries. After being given contracts for the first in 2015, the COA just last year increased the payday of the top category among women to Rs 50 lakh from the 15 it was before.

India’s women’s team are in fact among the highest paid among their contemporaries with Australia’s highest grade being Rs 40 lakh, New Zealand paying Rs 17 lakh and England also paying their top stars just around Rs 50 lakh as well.

So while Mithali and Jhulan and Harman are getting paid at par with their contemporaries, there’s the little point to be made about the paychecks at home. Forget what the male cricketers make let’s just take a look at the BCCI’s own balance sheet to bring out the contrast.

• In January this year, the BCCI paid Rs 91 lakh to the company that provided the ‘Spidercam’ just for the West Indies series.
• They paid Rs 1.1 crore to the company that made graphics during that home series.
• BCCI's men’s national selectors earn Rs 90 lakh a year, and the Chairman makes Rs 1 crore.

So when everyone else in the BCCI’s ecosystem is benefitting from the revenues of the world’s richest cricket body, then why not the women cricketers?

But it’s not just the women who feel a bit shortchanged.

There’s also the matter of some glaring omissions from the men’s contracts. Like Vijay Shankar who’s played 16 India games since the last contract was handed out, and just recently won India the second ODI vs Australia and is in all likelihood headed to the World Cup. But, no contract for him! Also missing from the list is Prithvi Shaw! Scored a century in his debut series against the Windies, landed in Australia as India’s number one choice for opener in Tests but got injured while on India duty and finds his name missing from the list.

And Hardik Pandya, a regular in all formats before his injury, the all-rounder is made to remain in the third grade along with Umesh Yadav, Chahal and KL Rahul. He played the entire South Africa tour last year and the whole of the England tour as well so if you go by the ‘plays all three formats’ thumb-rule, shouldn’t Pandya feature alongside Virat, Rohit and Bumrah in the A+ grade or else along side at least Ishant Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane in the A grade?

So while there was enough to celebrate the contract decisions last year, the BCCI could do well to step up their game and spend some of the money in the coffers on the players that actually help fill them.