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The BCCI announced the annual contracts for women’s cricketers for October 2020 to September 2021, with the top bracketed players receiving INR 50 lakh.
A total of 19 players made it to the list with the T20I captain Harmanpreet Kaur, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav getting the honours of top contracts.
India women’s legend Mithali Raj, who leads India’s Test and ODI teams, was handed a Grade B contract along with veteran pacer Jhulan Goswami.
Batting sensation Shafali Verma who has been making waves lately, has earned a promotion to Grade B bracket. The 17-year-old was handed a maiden Test call-up for the tour of England. Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Punam Raut also moved one tier up from Grade C to Grade B.
Veda Krishnamurthy, Anuja Patil, Ekta Bisht and D Hemalatha are the unfortunate ones to have not received an annual contract for the year 2020-21. This is another disheartening news for Krishnamurthy, who recently lost her mother and sister due to Covid-19. She was also excluded from the squads for the tour of England.
The annual contracts have been categorised into three brackets, with Grade A contracted players getting INR 50 lakh, Grade B players earning INR 30 lakh and Grade C players receiving INR 10 lakh.
The BCCI had given annual contracts to a total of 22 players last year but that number has been cut down to 19 for the 2020-21 period.
India women’s players have started to assemble in Mumbai for a two-week quarantine before they head to the UK. India Women’s team is set to play one Test, three ODIs and three T20 Internationals on the tour of England against the hosts.
Full list of BCCI’s annual contracts for senior women in 2020-21
Grade A: Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Poonam Yadav
Grade B: Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Punam Raut, Shafali Verma, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Radha Yadav, Taniya Bhatia, Shikha Pandey.
Grade C: Mansi Joshi, Richa Ghosh, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Priya Punia, Harleen Deol.
The BCCI and their treatment of women’s cricketers
Since the BCCI announced their annual contracts for the women’s team, social media has been abuzz with criticism for the board regarding their treatment of women’s cricketers.
Recently, the BCCI had unveiled the annual contracts for the senior men’s team, where the top bracketed players in A+ category would get INR 7 crore. The Grade A contracted players were offered INR 5 crore, Grade B players at INR 3 crore, while Grade C players on INR 1 crore payroll.
Compare this with Women’s annual contract structure, and there’s a huge disparity for everyone to see. Grade A contracted women’s players receiving half the salary of a men’s player in the Grade C category shows the imbalance in the two structures.
Apart from the salary caps, the BCCI have shown their disinterest towards women’s cricket in various ways. The board first clashed the Women’s T20 Challenge with the WBBL last year, denying India’s top players a chance to compete in the best women’s tournament.
The women’s team were not given a single fixture for over a year until they faced South Africa at home. And now that they have scheduled a tour for them, the timings of the matches clash directly with that of India men’s cricket matches.
This becomes even more infuriating when you consider that the other boards, which are financially far weaker than the BCCI, have better policies in place for their women’s cricket players.
