Sourav Ganguly to rectify salary imbalance between IPL and Tests

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has asked the former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly to create a data sheet that would solve the imbalance between the salaries of the players playing in the IPL and the ones playing Test cricket.

Ganguly will be preparing a plan sheet which will be aimed at bringing key reforms in the way Test cricket is handled and would suggest reforms for the same. Increasing the salaries of the senior players might well be one of the key reforms. The issue of salary disparity has come to the fore after noting down several examples wherein the players who play Test cricket alone and not feature in the IPL get paid less, while on the other hand, the uncapped players who play just the league are paid heavily.

The working committee of the BCCI cited the example of Cheteshwar Pujara, who only plays Test cricket for India. He was not the part of the IPL this season. Pujara gets Rs. 7 lakh for every Test, in addition to the annual amount of 50 lakhs that he gets being the Grade B contract player. The Grade A contract player gets Rs. 1 Crore annually and the Grade C players get Rs. 25 lakhs annually. For the ODIs, the players received Rs.4 Lakh per match.

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On the other hand, if you take the example of Pawan Negi, who has only played T20 international for India so far, and is yet to play an ODI or Test, pocketed a whopping 8.5 crore deal in the Indian Premier League. Citing concerns over the same imbalance between a Test player and IPL player, the BCCI under the new President Anurag Thakur, have asked Sourav Ganguly to come up with a solution.

The BCCI officials were in support of Test players and quoted that the Test players deserve more since they represent the country.  “The England players receive big money to play for their country and so is the case with most countries. What motivation will Pujara have in the circumstances? Those who play for the country should get many times more than what they get now,” quoted one of the BCCI officials.