India women set to receive same match fee as male counterparts

The tweet said that decision is in accordance with the governing body’s new pay equity policy and is the first step towards tackling discrimination. ”…We are implementing pay equity policy for our contracted BCCI women cricketers. The match for both men and women cricketers will be same as we move to a new era of gender equality in Indian cricket,” Shah tweeted.

As of now the women’s cricketers get paid one lakh per match as the fee for ODIs and T20Is and four lakhs per Tests.  Once the new policy comes into effect, India women will be paid 15 lakh INR per Tests, six lakh INR for an ODI, and three lakh INR for a T20I.

As for the annual central contract, women cricketers currently have three grades with those in the Grade ‘A’ receiving 50 lakh rupees per year and Grade ‘B’ bracket valued at 30 lakh rupees per annum with players in Grade ‘C’ taking home 10 lakh.

Truly a red letter day for Women’s Cricket in India with pay parity announced for women and men. Thank you @BCCI and @JayShah

— Harmanpreet Kaur (@ImHarmanpreet) October 27, 2022

In the last updated contract list which was released in March this year ahead of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 in New Zealand, there is 17 centrally contracted women cricketers with five in the ‘A’ grade,  five in ‘B’, and rest of them in the ‘C’ category. Men’s cricketers – 27 of them are centrally contract – are divided into four categories with an additional ‘A+’ classification and they receive seven crore rupees per year, while ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ take home INR five crore, three crore, and one crore respectively.

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There hasn’t been any mention of equal match fee coming into effect at the domestic level as of now. Currently the 2022-23 season is in process with Senior Women's T20 Trophy knock out stages set to start on Friday.

India women have had a hectic international season after the first round exit at the New Zealand World Cup. They beat Sri Lanka away in both formats before travelling to England for the Commonwealth Games and a series against the hosts. Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. won the silver medal at the Birmingham event before beating England 3-0 in the ODI series. Recently they won the Asia Cup for the seventh time beating Sri Lanka in the final of the tournament in Bangladesh.

India’s next assignment will be a five-match T20I series at home against Australia in December and the dates for the series haven’t been announced.