Stepping up the ladder to bring the women's cricket team up to the same level as the men's, BCCI implements the "pay equity policy" and plans the next steps in terms of more matches, putting domestic players in the spotlight, equal retainer payment, and women's Indian Premier League (IPL).
On October 27th 2022 BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) announced their “pay equity policy” and marked it as a historic moment for equal gender pay for women cricketers and their male counterparts. This news is very progressive and historic for cricket, which is India’s most loved sport.
What remains unnoticed is the scenario before and the consequences after the implementation of the policy by BCCI.
BCCI is considered the richest cricket board in the world and yet they took so long to sanction equal payment for all cricketers irrespective of their gender. This draws a parallel comparison to the women’s struggle for equal rights for voting, popularizing the woman suffrage movement and achieving its objective which continued from the early 20th century until the 21st century. Similarly, the Indian women's cricket team that was established in 1973 had to fight for equal rights for wages. First Indian women's cricket captain mentions:
“In my 21-year-long international career spanning from 1973 to 1994, I never made a single penny. It has been a long fight, and I think October 27, 2022, will be remembered as a momentous day for Indian women’s cricket.”
In the article published by The Indian Express on 27th October 2022 under ‘India’s first woman cricket captain writes: I know the difference pay parity can make'
You are the reason why not only BCCI but almost every cricket board treats their women cricketers unequally to male cricketers!
Did you ever question why male cricketers in India get more matches, sponsorships, advertisements and better retainer payment than women cricketers in India?
It’s all because men's cricket enjoys a great audience base unlike women's cricket and other sports too. The wider audience, the more revenue generation methods for BCCI. One of the reasons women's cricket also other women's sports are underrated is most people find it boring and less entertaining. Secondly, most of the people finds the notion of women playing sports very conflicting. This causes women to have few matches to play and discourages them to choose sports as their career.
This announcement to close the gender gap might only benefit some of the elite contracted women cricketer age ranging from 25-30. So, the domestic aspect is yet to be covered under the equal pay policy and retainer payment system which remains the same i.e., women with their different grade player’s amount differing from the range of 50 lakhs, 30 lakhs to 10 lakhs at the minimum.
Sometimes, it’s disheartening to see how social media will get flooded by people grieving over the men's Indian cricket team’s bad loss in the semi-finals against England in T-20 World Cup but doesn’t take efforts to acknowledge the Indian women's cricket team’s participation in commonwealth games 2022 wherein, they secured a sliver for the country and won T-20 World Cup Women 2022.
Visible favoring of audiences for male cricket tournaments causes BCCI to focus less on women’s cricket in India. Yet, they took small steps to bring the women's cricket game to the same grounds as men’s cricket in India. India took this decision of equal pay after New Zealand, the first country to bring up equal match fees for their cricket players among all the genders for international and domestic matches, unlike India. Such gestures are appreciated widely and are looking forward to covering other issues and creating almost an equal ground for all gender, to feel motivated and honored in their game.
Khel is incomplete without their Khiladi. Thank you for staying in the conversation on the underrated topic of sport: EQUAL PAY FOR ALL!
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