BCCI yet to pay women’s team the prize money for reaching ICC T20 World Cup 2020 final

Just a few days, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was heavily criticized for the alarming gap in salaries of men and women cricketers. The women cricketers placed in the top salary bracket, A category, receive INR 50 lakh from the board. The players in category B get INR 30 lakh while those in the category C earn INR 10 lakh. Contrary to this, male cricketers are divided into four categories and their top category players earn a whopping INR 7 crore while the players in the C category also get INR 1 crore.

The Indian board has again managed to come under the scanner and controversy has erupted in the cricket fraternity due to biasedness shown by the BCCI in its handling of women’s cricket. Last year, the Indian Women’s team reached the finals of the ICC T20 World Cup 2020 where they lost to mighty Australia. For their excellent performance in the ICC tournament and reaching the finals, the Women’s team was bound to collectively receive a handsome amount of $500,000 (£350,000) by the International Cricket Council.

However, in a sad turn of events, it is learned that ICC gave the whole money to BCCI within few days of the league but the Indian board still holds the entire prize pot awarded to India’s players, more than a year after they earned it. The prize money given by ICC needs to allocated among players and should be paid within two weeks of receiving it from the ICC.

If the money is equally split among the 15 Indian women’s cricketers, then each player is expected to receive $33,000. This can be a life-changing amount for many women cricketers considering their pay are extremely low. This is an embarrassing revelation for BCCI as the Indian board boasts of being the richest cricket board in the entire cricket fraternity.

Non-payment of money owing to players is unacceptable: FICA CEO

Tom Moffat, the CEO of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA), spoke about the entire matter revealing that they were made aware of the non-payments in August 2020 and have conveyed the issue 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,” Mr Moffat told Telegraph Sport.