By: Drcricket7 Staff
If some of the prominent BCCI members have their way, the Indian cricketers may get a salary hike when their annual contracts are up for renewal later this year.
According to insiders, the board is mulling to revise the pay package of the top Indian players to make it at par with some of the other highest paid cricketers in the world. A Virat Kohli, who may be earning nearly Rs 5 crore annually from the BCCI, will stand to gain more from this move.
Sources said that an Australian cricketer on an average earns more than Rs 5 crores through graded payment structure. Over and above, there is a separate payment from match participation (match fees).
As per BCCI’s annual contract with its players, the Indian Grade-A cricketers get around Rs 1 crore while Grade B and C players get around Rs 50 lakh and Rs 25 lakh respectively.
For a Test match, an Indian cricketer makes Rs 8 lakh while an ODI and a T20 game fetch them Rs 4 lakh and Rs 2 lakh respectively. If a player isn’t a part of the playing XI, he is only entitled to get 50 per cent of the match fee.
The Indian cricketers also make money from the gross revenue share of the BCCI, bonus and prize money every year. But all put together, their income from the richest board is far more less than some of other top cricketers in the world. Their saving grace is the IPL salaries and other commercial endorsements.
That is why the BCCI is committed to change the current salary structure and there is also a thought process of bringing in a system of performance based payments, where the cricketers will be making more if they perform better.
“The matter will be taken into consideration at some point. You can’t obviously match the IPL salaries, but the board is committed to a revised payment structure, which is long overdue,” a board official told Drcricket7.
A few of the BCCI members, who are not sure about such an impending move, denied the development. They said the BCCI has a few important issues to sort out before deciding the payment structure of the cricketers.
It is understood that the cricket advisory committee, which has stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, may also offer suggestions to the BCCI on the payment restructuring.
“All will be known after the date of the AGM is decided. In any case, the cricketers are paid handsomely. The board is already spending nearly Rs 45 crore every year to pay its cricketers. The amount may go up by a few crore,” a prominent working committee member added.
