Mumbai men set to receive 100% pay raise from 2024-25 domestic season

The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) recently made a huge announcement where the board agreed that they will be providing the Mumbai players with a 100% pay raise from the 2024–25 season. The decision came after the state association recommended that the players’ BCCI earnings be same from the domestic circuit. 

The decision was approved at the MCA's apex council meeting, and the pay raise will see a player's earnings double through the season. It is worth noting that the BCCI has been paying players across three slabs.

The cricketers with 40 first-class caps earn INR 60,000 a day, the stars with 21–40 games take home INR 50,000 a day, and those who have featured in fewer than 20 games earn INR 40,000 a day.

To state an example, Mumbai’s opener, Bhupen Lalwani, who had played all 10 games for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, would have earned INR 17.2 lakhs as match fees. However, had this rule come into effect sooner, the opener would have earned INR 34.4 lakh.

"We felt that the player should earn more, especially those who play Ranji Trophy cricket, for us red-ball cricket matters the most as the Ranji Trophy holds a special place for everyone in Mumbai,” MCA president Amol Kale was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. 

Certainly there will be a lot more people playing: Sunil Gavaskar

Furthermore, former Indian batter Sunil Gavaskar came forward to talk of how the match fee should be increased in domestic cricket, to help increase the number of players prioritising the domestic circuit even more.

"If the Ranji Trophy fee can be doubled or tripled, certainly there will be a lot more people playing the Ranji Trophy, [and a] lot less pullouts, they will all be wanting to play with the slab system - [if] every ten first-class matches you get that much more - so I would request the BCCI to look at that aspect as well,” Gavaskar said.