The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced their annual contract for Women’s cricketer for 2020-2021 on Wednesday. BCCI named 19 players in this contract while there were 22 players in the last annual contract cycle.
The annual contracts for India Women have been classified into three categories with the players in the top bracket earning Rs 50 lakh – Grade A – Rs 50 lakh, Grade B – Rs 30 lakh, Grade C – Rs 10 lakh. Only three players have been handed Grade A contracts as the likes of Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and leg-spinner Poonam Yadav have retained their grades.
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Teenage sensation Shafali Verma, who earned her maiden annual contract last year, has been promoted to Grade B from C. Punam Raut and Rajeshwari Gayakwad have also been promoted to Grade B.
Notably, India men’s top cricketers get a whopping INR 7 crores as their annual salary. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah are only three players in that bracket.
This has started the debate of gender bias among the fans on social media. Fans started to blame the board for not providing equal salary to their cricketers. Several cricket pundits and experts have also given their say on the same, be it in favour or against it.
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India Women’s star player Smriti Mandhana gave her opinion on the same debate some time ago. She defended the board despite this parity between men and women cricketers in India. She said Virat Kohli and his team bring the lion’s share to the revenue.
“We need to understand that the revenue we get is through men’s cricket. The day women’s cricket starts earning revenue, I will be the first person to say that we need the same thing. Right now, we cannot say that,” said Mandhana.
“I do not think any of my teammates are thinking about this [pay] gap because the only focus right now is to win matches for India. We need to get the crowd coming in and earn revenues. That what we are aiming for. If that happens, everything else will fall in place.”
“For that, we need to perform. It is unfair on our part to say that we need to be paid as much as the men. It is not right. So, I do not think I want to comment on that gap.”
India Women will be touring the UK to participate in a full-length tour against England, comprising one Test, three ODIs and three T20Is.
