The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has come under a lot of fire recently. The top cricket board in the country was slammed recently because of the gulf in between salaries of the men and women cricketers and the general neglect and disregard for the women’s team.
Those problems and the increased scrutiny on BCCI’s bias are unlikely to go away as reports suggest that the board is yet to pay the women’s cricketers their prize money for reaching the final of the ICC T20 World Cup in Australia last year.
Though the Women in Blue ended up losing the final to home side Australia in front of the sold-out MCG in March, 2020, they were supposed to receive a handsome amount of USD 500,000 (GBP 350,000) from the International Cricket Council (ICC) for reaching the final.
However, in an unfortunate set of events, the players are yet to receive that money. The ICC made it clear that the entire sum was sent to the BCCI within a few days after the tournament ended and the BCCI was supposed to distributed that sum among all the players within two weeks of receiving it from the ICC.
The amount of USD 500,000 split equally between the 15-member team amounts to USD 33,000 per player which is a ‘life-changing sum’ given how low the women’s cricketers are paid. Despite being the richest cricket board in the world, the women cricketers placed in the most premium bracket receive only INR 50 lakh from the board. For comparison, the Men in Blue’s top category players earn as much as INR 7 Crores.
The CEO of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations Tom Moffat revealed that they were made aware of the issue in August 2020 and that they have conveyed the entire matter to the International Cricket Council.
“Prize money is payable to players for their on-field performance in pinnacle events and the late non-payment of money owing to players is unacceptable. We encourage players in India to consider getting organized as part of a players’ association so they, and the game in India, can benefit from collective player representation in the same way that their fellow professionals around the world do,” Moffat told Telegraph Sport.
After the news report came to light, a senior BCCI official said that the players will receive their collective payment by the end of the week. “The members of the Indian women’s cricket team will be getting the share of their prize money by the end of this week. The transactions have been processed and I am expecting that they will receive their share very soon,” the senior board member told PTI.
When enquired about the delay, he added, “We received the prize money amount late last year.” The processing of players’ payments in BCCI does take around three to four months for all teams (across age groups).
