'Not a respectful remuneration at all' - Fans accuse BCCI of gender bias over payments to India Women cricketers

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), on Wednesday, announced the central contracts for its Women cricketers for the 2020-21 season. A total of 19 cricketers were handed the contracts with them being divided in three categories – A, B, and C. The likes of Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav continued to be in the top category earning Rs 50 lakh.

The players in the category B get Rs 30 lakh while those in C category earn Rs 10 lakh. Contrary to this, Men’s cricketers are divided in four categories and their top category players earn a whopping Rs 7 crore while the players in C category also get Rs 1 crore.

No wonder the gap in salaries of Men’s and Women’s cricketers is alarming and not for the first time, the fans have highlighted it on social media. Soon after the BCCI released the list of contracted players, Twitterati expressed its disappointment over the pay gap as they felt that the Women cricketers, who play for the country, deserved to be paid equally.

As far as the contracts are concerned, Shafali Verma was promoted from C to B category while the overall list was trimmed from 22 to 19 cricketers. Veda Krishnamurthy, Ekta Bisht, Anuja Patil and Dayalan Hemalatha were amongst dropped with Richa Ghosh being included in the contract for the first time.

BCCI was criticised for not arranging charter flights for Women cricketers

A couple of days ago, BCCI was also heavily criticised after it was reported that the board didn’t arrange any charter flights for Women cricketers to reach Mumbai ahead of England tour. On the flip side, BCCI had arrange door to door COVID tests and charter flights for the Men’s squad picked for WTC Final and England tour.

However, the likes of Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur, India’s skippers in different formats, clarified that the board is taking care of Women’s cricketers as well. They also added that self-commuting was a personal choice from a few players. Having said that, the issue regarding the gap in payments of Men’s and Women’s cricketers has been highlighted again and the fans are taking potshots at the BCCI.

Here are some of the tweets:

Not a respectful remuneration at all! Shameful, I would say. Request @KirenRijiju to look into this matter. Such a low salary amounts to gender bias, nothing else. Any logic in its favour would be utter nonsense.

— Urbane Guru (@urbane_guru) May 19, 2021

Should be paid more. Women’s team deserve it. They reached ODI finals, T20 finals and are continuously putting in more efforts. @BCCI should consider the change @BCCIWomen

— Abhi Panchal (@iamabhi1909) May 19, 2021

Shocked that mithali and jhulan most experienced players in the team at 30L packages and only 3 women's for 50L packages (harmanpreet,smriti and poonam raut)

— Aditya (@Adityapatwal02) May 19, 2021

Only 50L ??? They deserve much better 😡 @BCCI @SGanguly99

— Suganya Murugan (@Suganyao3) May 19, 2021

Very very very less package…Double standard

— राहुल पाटील (@PatilRahul94) May 19, 2021

Virat Kohli will be paid 14 times more than his counterpart Harmanpreet Kaur,though the men's team failed to qualify for finals in WC whereas the women's team reached finals.
There has been no significant pay rise in women's pay since arrival of Saurav Ganguly as President.

— Parth (@Parth37019714) May 19, 2021

U need to give more salary to them they are good in cricket

— Abhilash reddy (@ItmeAbhilash) May 19, 2021

Atleast give them
3-2-1 Cr

— 𝑫𝑹𝒙.Swaraj Wankhede 🇮🇳 (@ImswaRO45) May 19, 2021

It's not fair with women's cricket team.@BCCI and @BCCIWomen needs to look into this matter..

— Rkumar (@Itsrajnish5935) May 19, 2021