The Committee of Administrator (CoA) has got a proposal from BCCI board to hike in the Central Contracts of Indian cricket players. The aim of the proposal is to reaffirm the Test cricket’s top status among the Next-Gen who are certainly enamored by the IPL riches. On Wednesday, the CoA of Board of Control for Cricket in India doubled the Annual Retainer-ship fee of India’s 32 contracted cricketers. All the decision was taken in consultation with the National Selection Committee (NSC).
The Committee announced that Grade-A players will now be paid Rs 2 crore per annum as compared to the earlier Rs 1 crore, while Grade B and C players will be paid Rs 1 crore and Rs 50 lakh respectively. The Test matches’ match fee has been hiked to Rs 15 lakh per match from earlier Rs 7.50 lakh, while the match fee for One Day International (ODI) and T20 Internationals will make them richer by Rs 6 lakh and 3 lakh respectively. The new proposal and all the payments will be effective from 1st October 2016
7 cricketers in the Grade- A are M S Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Murali Vijay. While senior players like Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra have found the place in Grade- B and Grade- C respectively. In fact, the biggest name missing from the 32-contracted list is Suresh Raina although Raina had played for India after October 1, 2016. Some of the big stars like Ishant Sharma or Pujara have gone unsold at the Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions while uncapped players like Thangarasu Natarajan and Md Shiraz got whopping contracts of Rs 3 crore and Rs 2.6 crore respectively purely based on their T20 skills.
Gautam Gambhir and Harbhajan Singh are not in this contracted list as they have played before the date, from which the contracts are to come into effect. While young Rishabh Pant is a part of Grade- C pay contract.
The BCCI said, “It is a great proposal as it will mean that the real incentive should be playing Test cricket. The youngsters who are getting such huge salaries from Indian Premier League (IPL) will realize that the real cricket is beyond the Rs 2 crore that they earn within 45 days of IPL period”. Another aspect that has been taken into consideration in this proposal is that not every top player is earning a lot from the endorsement market.
According to BCCI “As a brand, it is MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli who are marketable stars among the current players as far as TV Commercials are concerned. It is very difficult to find brands for a Pujara or say an Umesh Yadav. But really they are performers in their own rights. Everyone will not remain marketable once their ten to fifteen years’ career is over. If the BCCI is able to provide a cushion for them, there is no harm”.
