Fact: Virat Kohli’s Salary Is 37% More Than Whole Indian Women Team: Over the last few years, women’s cricket has finally started to get much-deserving attention and the prime example of this fact can be the crowd attendance in the T20 World Cup final last year. However, that’s not it, a change in the salaries of women cricketers needs to be made.
Recently, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the annual contract renewals of the Indian players (both male and female). However, ever since then, a section of fans started a debate on social media by raising the issue of equal pay.
As per the latest contract list released by the BCCI, the Grade A+ contracted players will receive a whopping amount of 7 crores. Meanwhile, C grade men’s cricketer gets 1 crore annually. However, on the other hand, the Grade A women cricketers will receive 50 Lakhs after a season, and Grade B women cricketers will receive a salary of INR 30 lac.
However, the fact that an A-grade women cricketer earns the half of amount that a C-grade male cricketer gets tells the brutal truth about the inequality in paycheques.
Not just this, the difference between both men’s and women’s cricketers can be compared with the fact that the salary of the Indian skipper Virat Kohli is 37% more than the combined total of the whole Indian Women’s team pay.
BCCI should take inspiration from Cricket Australia (CA) and the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA), who had set an example in 2017 by giving the biggest pay rise in the history of women’s sport in Australia. In 2017, Cricket Australia had announced that the pay of female players will increase from $7.5 million to $55.2 million by the end of their 5-year deal.
Though the road towards equal pay for Indian women is a rough ride but it can be achieved if both the male and female cricketers takes a stand for it unitedly.
