Cricket Australia announces big pay rise for Women's team

Australia Women’s team has been given a wonderful pay rise which enables the Women’s World T20 runner-ups to earn six-figure salaries, making them as the best-paid females athletes in the country.

Cricket Australia will increase the player payment pool from $2.36 million to $4.23 million, and the Southern Stars’ top-ranked player will now earn $65,000 as an annual base contracts, while minimum retainers have doubled from $19,000 to $40,000.

Many Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars players, who were runners-up in the recently-concluded ICC World T20 in India, will now be able to earn in excess of $100,000 a year.

The highest-ranked women such as captain Meg Lanning and all-rounder Ellyse Perry stand to earn more than $100,000 from Cricket Australia each year, before individual sponsorship endorsements are added.

“We are determined to make cricket the sport of choice for women in Australia,” said CA CEO James Sutherland. “We have worked constructively with the Australian Cricketers’ Association to reach this point and will continue to do so in our ongoing efforts to improve wages and workplace conditions for all elite female cricketers.”

There remains a huge disparity between the earnings of women and their male counterparts, some of whom earn millions of dollars every year. Each member of the men’s team that won last year’s World Cup in Australia reportedly pocketed $340,000.

In addition to the increased pay for elite women’s players, a number of other benefits were announced by Cricket Australia, comprising: improved travel and accommodation; an updated pregnancy policy; restrictions on weekday hours of domestic team training to support players working or studying; and reduced commercial restrictions for WNCL and WBBL players in relation to major sponsors.

Cricket Australia also said the ACA had committed $500,000 over two years to cover private health insurance costs for players.

The Southern Stars are ranked the best women’s team in the world by the ICC, and narrowly missed out on a fourth consecutive World Twenty20 title with defeat to the West Indies in the final in Kolkata last weekend.