The BCCI announced the contracts for Indian Women Cricketers on May 19. As opposed to 22 contracted players last year, the number came down to 19 this year.
The combined worth of these contracts is 5.1 crores as opposed to 96 crores for men
Men players who are in their first season of turning out for India and are on the fringes of the national team are going to be earning 3 times more than veterans like Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami who have been playing International Cricket for over 20 years for the country. This wage gap is not only massive but shameful for a country with the richest cricket organization in the world.
Equitable pay, not equal pay
Now a very common rebuttal to this is that men’s games earn more than women’s games and thus, equal pay does not make sense. You also might have heard the common “the BCCI is a business and not a government organization or an NGO.”
But what people don’t seem to understand is that people are demanding equitable pay, not equal pay. Secondly, every business requires a certain investment. And that investment isn’t always monetary, but that of time and effort as well.
No investment made in women’s cricket
It’s been 13 years since the first season of Men’s IPL was played in 2008, but we still don’t have a Women’s T20 league yet. On the other hand, Cricket Australia launched a Women’s T20 League back in 2015, and the ECB launched Kia Super League back in 2016. The objective was very similar to what the IPL had when it started. What also helped these two boards was that their women’s team was also the world's top 2.
It is also important to note that these tournaments are franchise tournaments where overseas players also come and play. Hence the quality of games is more than that in domestic cricket.
Is lack of performance the reason for no women’s IPL?
No. In the last 4 years, there have been 3 ICC World Tournaments in Women’s Cricket: 2017 Women’s World Cup, 2018 T20 World Cup and 2020 T20 World Cup. In all 3 of these tournaments, the Indian women reached the knockouts and in 2 of them, in 2017 and 2020, they were the finalists and lost very narrowly by a margin of 9 runs in the final of the 2017 World Cup. Also, it must be noted that on the 3 occasions that India lost in the knock-outs, it was to England & Australia- two teams that have a franchise-based domestic league structure. The performance in the 2017 World Cup was supposed to be a game-changer for the future of women’s cricket in India, but since then, there has only been the Women T20 challenge, a 4 game tournament mentioned earlier.
Viewership of women’s cricket
Last year when India played Australia in the finals of Women’s World T20 on the occasion of Women’s day, not only was it a house full event with an attendance of over 86K, but it turned out to be the most viewed Women’s cricket event. A whopping 9.02 million people from India turned out to watch the game on TV and digital platforms.
The BCCI is the world’s richest cricket organization that can easily afford to make big investments in the women’s game and ensure a robust social structure.
Just like a business, investment is important for any sport to grow which not only can ensure world-level domination of women’s side but unearth many talents like the 17-year-old Shafali Varma. Not only that, a robust structure can also lead to a societal change in terms of more women willing to pick a bat and ball and playing cricket and becoming big names. Through these contracts, women’s cricket is essentially being choked to a slow death in the country when it has massive potential to become an industry of its own.
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