Contracts announced for Indian team players, new category introduced

The BCCI’s administrative body COA have announced the contracts for a period of one year, starting from October 2017 until September 2018. Players saw a gradual jump in the pay structure where they saw a hike of about 330% that would in a way benefit all the current players in the national reckoning.



 



There were 2 categories previously, but a new category “Grade C” was introduced along with the Categories A & B.



Grade – A category players will be retained with a pay structure of 50 Lakhs



Grade – B category cricketers will be retained with an amount of 30 Lakhs



Grade – C category cricketers will be retained with an amount of 10 Lakhs



 



The 19-players announced under each category for Indian Women’s Team are:



Grade - A: Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana



Grade - B: Poonam Yadav, Veda Krishnamurthy, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Ekta Bisht, Shikha Pandey, Deepti Sharma



Grade - C: Mansi Joshi, AnujaPatil, Mona Meshram, NuzhatParveen, Sushma Verma, Punam Raut, Jemimah Rodrigues, PoojaVastrakar, Taniya Bhatia



 



Smriti Mandhana is promoted to Grade – A category. Whereas the recently debuted Taniya Bhatia, Pooja Vastrakar and Jemimah Rodrigues were given the Grade - C contracts. This is in a way would attract many young girls to take up cricket as a career. Diana Edulji influence is working wonders and the Indian team overseas performance proved their worth to the board as well.



 



When asked about how she feels about getting a BCCI contract at a very early age, young Rodrigues happily stated “It feels really great and I'm grateful that I'm a part of the C contract at such a young age. But yes, the best is yet to come”.



 



The domestic matches also saw a bit of a revamp as the senior domestic match players will be paid a minimum amount of Rs.6250 per match. With the salary lowering for players playing the U-23 and U-19/16. Grassroots level games must be promoted better.



 



The fees structure along with the category of the game is given below:

Category	Playing XI	Reserves
Senior	12,500	6,250
U23	5,500	2,750
U19 / U16	5,500	2,750

 

A pay-scale gap between the women cricketers and their male-counterparts is huge, but there is a much-needed improvement from the past. Women’s cricket needs a revamp in facilities across all the states in the country, be it a village from any corner of the country or a city with every girl having an equal choice to access and play the game.