Indian cricketers salary could go up to Rs 12 Crore per annum

Marquee Indian players are grossly underpaid compared to their British and Australian counterparts.

Recently Kohli, Dhoni and Shastri have a meeting with CoA to discuss salaries and FTP | Getty

One of the most successful and wealthiest cricket boards in the world, the BCCI already pays a heavy amount of salary every year to their players and they also divided three grades for salary. And now it has been learnt that the pay hikes could make Virat Kohli and his troops the richest cricketers in the world or at least on par with their Australian and British counterparts.

Recently, India’s current and former skipper Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni along with the chief coach Ravi Shastri had a meet up with Vinod Rai led Committee of Administrators (CoA) in New Delhi. The trio discussed salaries and the future tour programs (FTP) with the CoA member.

The annual contracts of Indian cricketers were due for renewal since the last two months and now as per the reports in Mumbai Mirror, cricketers with Grade A contracts could be paid around Rs 12 crore per annum, with the captain’s salary even higher. The Grade B players’ contracts could be approximately Rs 8 crore, and Grade C contracts could fetch around Rs 4 crore a year.

Read More: Ravi Shastri earns Rs 1.20 crore salary for 3 months as head coach

As far as the annual contract of 2016-17 is concerned – Grade A players were paid INR. 2 Crore annually whereas Grade B and C cricketers fetched INR. 1 Crore and INR. 50 Lakh respectively.

“The discussions went on for more than four hours and focused on the disparity in wage structures between Indian, British, and Australian players. There is no doubt the marquee Indian players are grossly underpaid compared to their British and Australian counterparts,” a CoA source revealed to Mumbai Mirror.

Moreover, there was also a discussion on how to ensure superior disbursement for the domestic players and the main focus was on Ranji players.

“The career span of a domestic cricketer is not very long these days. All of them are not highly educated and jobs are scarce. It is essential they are compensated adequately,” the source further said.

See More: IPL to introduce reverse draft and higher salary cap

When it comes to high profile coaches all around the world, India’s chief coach Ravi Shastri earns nearly 1.17 million dollars per annum, according to an ESPNCricinfo report released in October.

Shastri’s salary is considerably higher than Australia’s Darren Lehman ($0.55 million) and England’s Trevor Bayliss ($0.52 million). In fact, the Indian head coach currently earns more than the national skipper Virat Kohli if we don’t include Kohli's revenues from advertisements.

Virat earns approximately $1 million per annum in salary, this is excluding the income he generates from advertising, which undoubtedly will be a lot more. On the other hand, Kohli's contemporaries in Australia and England, namely Steve Smith and Joe Root get paid around 1.47 million dollars and 1.27 million dollars per year respectively.

 
 

By Salman Anjum - 04 Dec, 2017

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