New Zealand Cricket to pay men, women equally: Where does India stand?

Top-grade international male cricketers get Rs 7 crore annual salary; women get Rs 50 lakh

At long last, progress. New Zealand Cricket’s (NZC) decision to award both its men and women players equal match pay is a small battle won in a long war of discrimination.

For cricket, a game famously steadfast in its embrace of tradition, for good and bad, this is new ground. No one has done this before, and New Zealand’s decision will rattle not just the men in charge of other national associations, but also put forth more questions for the direction of the women’s game.

According to NZC's latest pay agreement, which comes into effect on August 1, the highest ranked international women players (players are graded on their experience, performance and value across formats) can receive a maximum of $163,246 a year, up from $83,242. Top-ranked domestic players will be able to receive a maximum of $19,146 (from $3,423).

New Zealand’s landmark agreement comes in the footsteps of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) releasing its latest list of cricketer’s salaries — by gradation. The difference makes for uncomfortable reading — more so when you consider the budgets, profits and annual income the BCCI rolls as compared to its puny Southern hemisphere counterparts. In 2020-21, BCCI's annual income was Rs 2,658.20 crore.

According to the BCCI salary list, a Grade A+ (the highest bracket) international male cricketer will be awarded Rs 7 crore in annual salary (grades A, B and C get Rs 5 crore, 3 crore and 1 crore, respectively). International women cricketers have three gradations, and the highest earners, in Grade A, will be compensated to the tune of Rs 50 lakh. Grade B and C earn Rs 30 lakh and 10 lakh, respectively.

The discrepancy in salaries gets worse the deeper you drop in the pyramid. A senior woman domestic cricketer in the playing XI will be entitled to a match fee of Rs 20,000 — equal to the match fee of an Under 19 domestic cricketer in the country.

“At least they have brought it on a par with a junior cricketer now,” a former India women’s team coach, who declined to be named, laughs. “Till not so long back the girls playing domestic were earning a match fee of Rs 12,500.”

The issue in India, the coach argues, has less to do with equal pay itself as much as with the obvious discrimination with regard to opportunity, playing spaces and competitions that already exist. “It’s quite clear now that our girls are among the top four teams in the world. We reached the finals in two consecutive World Cups and have always been biting at the top end of the spectrum,” she says. “But the lack of attention paid to anyone outside of the India system is, frankly, galling.”

Beyond those boundaries

While cricket in India flourishes, while also remaining in complete isolation, other sports, notably Olympic disciplines, have, without making much of a fuss about it, gradually brought about gender parity across the board – not just with pay but also facilities, coaching systems, access and competitive direction.

Hockey: Hockey India does not pay its players a salary, and daily allowances are the same for players in the national camp, sources say. National team sponsorships are also split evenly between the two teams.

“I will say this, Hockey India has done a superb job of enforcing, at its own level, in its tournaments, parity for women players,” former India captain Pritam Siwach says. Siwach runs her own girls’ hockey academy in Sonepat, Haryana — three of her wards are currently playing for the Indian team at the Hockey World Cup in the Netherlands and Spain. She laments the fact that this parity hasn’t translated to state associations yet.

“At Nationals, the conduct of the tournament is exemplary. It is on a par with the men, always,” she says. “The women's team, as everyone knows now, shares facilities with the men, has some of the best minds coaching it, and has access to dieticians, analysts etc.” However, with state tournaments, often enough this isn’t true. “Sometimes you’re playing at places where they haven’t even built good enough dressing rooms for the girls, or even toilets.”

Badminton: What’s true for hockey is also true for badminton. Almost all tournaments, including India’s premier event, the India Open, gives equal prize money to winners in the men and women categories. A large amount of this, Siwach says, probably has to do with the fact that “the women are bigger than the men”.

Table tennis: A recent shift in policy by the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) — currently run by a Committee of Administrators (CoA) — has meant that going forward, at the Nationals, prize money will split evenly. It is a first of a kind decision in Indian sport, that may well pave the way forward for others.

The three-member committee’s head, Delhi High Court Chief Justice Gita Mittal, says she was deeply concerned “over the discriminatory treatment meted out to women and girl players in the context of award of prize money and payments.” The revelation that at the national championships in 2021, the men’s singles winner took home Rs 2.75 lakh, while the women took home Rs 1.80 lakh nailed the facts home. The new prize money allocation will apply at the senior, sub junior, junior, cadet as well as ranking tournaments.

Money is just one issue

“What I think people fail to realise is that this argument for equal pay is a bit misguided,” Anya Alvarez says. Alvarez was a golfer on the LPGA tour and writes and advocates for gender equality in sport. “Equal pay is often only half the issue. The systemic sexism in the system, starting from how women in sport are marketed is actually, in my opinion, a bigger issue going forward.”

Alvarez’s argument gathers even more credence when placed in the context of why many sports federations, administrators, and even fans, argue against women being paid the same as men in sport. The regular arguments range from “they don’t bring in enough revenue” and “there’s a lack of sponsor interest” to “it (women’s games) is boring”.

A perfect example of this is in hockey. Eleven months back, when the women hockey team finished fourth at the Olympics in heart-breaking fashion, losing the bronze medal match to England, social media, news media and even broadcast media jumped on the bandwagon to call the girls heroes and future legends. India played England in their World Cup opener barely a week ago, and unsurprisingly, the interest has cooled. Broadcasters haven’t put the games on TV (Star has instead put them on its OTT) and there is barely any advertising for it anywhere.

What is true for hockey is also true for cricket. Every Indian men's cricket tour is covered and advertised with fervour, but women’s tours and series are relegated to an afterthought. Compare the ads on TV for a men’s ODI series to that of the Women’s World Cup. Few would even remember when or where the women’s World Cup was held.

“The effect this lack of promotion has is quite clear,” Alvarez says. "Not only does it reduce the popularity and the growth of women’s sport, but also the earning potential of women athletes who, denied the face time, don’t build a fanbase in the same way their male peers do.” The subsequent effect on viewership and salary discrepancy endures for years, she adds, “pushing women athletes into a system where they’re just happy to get to play. And often even that isn’t enough.”

While the equal pay decision is huge in itself, it is worth noting that regardless of it, New Zealand’s men players will anyway end up making much more money than their women counterparts — simply because they play much more.

Consider this fact: New Zealand’s men's cricket team won the inaugural ICC World Test Championships last year. They played 11 Tests over two years to get to the final, where they beat India to clinch the trophy. New Zealand’s women last played a Test match in 2004. Their captain Sophie Devine was 15 at the time. 

BCCI’s annual contract salaries

Men

Grade A+: Rs 7 crore

Grade A: Rs 5 crore

Grade B: Rs 3 crore

Grade C: Rs 1 crore

Women

Grade A: Rs 50 lakh

Grade B: Rs 30 lakh

Grade C: Rs 10 lakhs

Source: BCCI

Domestic cricket

At the domestic level, there are three brackets for salaries. The highest goes to senior players (above 40 matches) in the men's game who are awarded Rs 60,000 match fee.

The women have a single bracket — Rs 20,000 — which is equal to the lowest bracket in the men (awarded to U19 players).