India’s ICC Women’s World Cup 2025 winning captain Harmanpreet Kaur has stated that she is confident that the BCCI will plug the gap in pay in central contracts of Indian men’s and women’s cricketers after the World Cup win.
While Kaur stated that the pay disparity never really bothered her as it was “driven by market forces," she believes the BCCI men’s and women’s central contracts will now be closer in value.
Even after the BCCI equalized match fees for female and male cricket players in 2022, there was still a noticeable disparity in the central contracts. Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet's teammate, has long maintained that market pressures have an impact on the remuneration system, and the captain concurs.
Top-tier male cricket players currently earn Rs 7 crore a year, compared to Rs 50 lakh for female players.
“It will change now (the value of the central contracts). That’s what I feel. A lot of changes came after 2017 (when India reached the final). Before that, our central contract was worth Rs 15 lakh," Harmanpreet was quoted as saying to PTI.
Although Harmanpreet recognized that men's cricket generates the majority of money, he pointed out that change is already underway with the women's ODI World Cup victory earlier this month.
“After the 2017 World Cup, it became Rs 50 lakh. After that, we couldn’t prove ourselves much, especially in ICC events. Because at the end of the day, the main goal is ICC events. After winning this trophy, I am sure there will be a lot of improvements. And we will see financially also. Before this, all the revenue was coming through men’s cricket. We were grateful that BCCI made us a part of it and supported women’s cricket when it needed it the most,” Harmanpreet added.
Strong performances will drive market forces to pay female cricket players more, according to Harmanpreet.
“One thing that we always knew was that we will have to contribute, and then only we can come to that point. Now we can talk about equal payment and equal recognition. For that, we have to come to that point because we knew that they (the men) have improved their cricket so much over the years. They have won back-to-back trophies for the country. If their market value is higher than ours, then there must be some reason behind it," she said.
Harmanpreet said the market value of women cricketers has already increased after the final in Navi Mumbai on November 2, where they decisively defeated South Africa.
“Post November 2, the market value of women’s cricket has gone up because of the trophy. If we had not won that trophy, we would still be stuck there. If we want to change, we have to come to a point where we win the same number of trophies for the country. Then people will automatically start giving us the same value as men get," said the Indian skipper.
ICC Chairman Jay Shah's commitment to the development of Indian women's cricket during his time as BCCI secretary was commended by Harmanpreet. Shah was credited with establishing the Women's Premier League and pay parity in match payments.
“…Jay Shah has been the biggest contributor. He has been the biggest strength for our team; he supported us even when we hadn’t won any ICC trophy. We really wanted to do it for him. He gave us everything we needed, be it pay parity or any support. He couldn’t express much on the ground when we won; he just said, ‘I am very happy,’ and that was all we needed," she said.
(PTI inputs)
