Indian skipper Virat Kohli’s demand of 100% hike in salary has been approved by the Committee of Administrators (CoA), as per reports of Times Of India. The CoA is also trying to work out a formula that will add another 200 crores to the salaries of Indian cricketers. At present Indian cricketers are paid salaries out of 180 crores.
“Senior cricketers are certainly going to get a 100% raise and even domestic players would get the same percentage increase,” a source close to CoA told Times of India. “Since, these cricketers are the reason for BCCI”s revenues, can”t the board afford another Rs 200 crore for their salaries?” a top board official said.
“Because of the sheer bulk of the money, the senior Indian cricketers can”t be given half of the projected 26% revenue of BCCI. It would be distributed in such a way that domestic cricketers also get big hikes,” the official further added. Cricketers who are restricted to only one format of the game (e.g. Cheteshwar Pujara plays only tests) are also to be compensated handsomely.
Last home season BCCI doubled the match fees of cricketers looking at the results they were bringing. India became the No.1 test team in the world in October 2016 and is way ahead than other teams. Unlike other boards, the payment structure of BCCI is little different than others.
The Indian cricketers are given yearly contracts in Grade A, Grade B and Grade C. The senior members in the side who have established themselves and continue to be an integral part of the team are given Grade A contracts. The Grade B belongs to those who have played a fair bit of international cricket but haven”t cemented their places across all formats. Grade C is for those who are new on international arena or cricketers who are out of the scheme of things.
The contract amount of Grade A, Grade B, and Grade C cricketers is 2 crores, 1 Crore, and 50 lakhs respectively.
Players in each Grade:
Grade A (2 crores): Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Ravi Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravi Jadeja,
Grade B (1 Crore): Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Wriddhiman Saha, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuvraj Singh
Grade C (50 lakhs): Shikhar Dhawan, Ambati Rayudu, Amit Mishra, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Kedar Jadhav, Ashish Nehra, Parthiv Patel, Jayant Yadav, Yuzavendra Chahal, Dhawal Kulkarni, Rishab Pant, Mandeep Singh, Shardul Thakur
If a player who is not in central contract plays 3 matches for India then he is inducted into Grade C. Apart from the contract price, every cricketer gets match fees of 15 lakhs for the test, 7 lakh for ODI and 3 lakh for T20I. If a player announced retirement he is automatically omitted from the list.
– by Atharva Apte
