Men’s and women’s cricket is hailed in high esteem in India. Whenever there’s a cricket match, the audience goes crazy, and during the World Cup or IPL, Indians are rarely seen watching anything else. As a result, most people have started playing fantasy cricket on their mobile devices to stay connected with their favorite sport at all times. Fantasy cricket allows cricket lovers to be part of the action. They can create online cricket teams, enter different cricket leagues and championships, apply their knowledge of the game, and beat their opponents.
While you can follow the performance of your loved crickets and gauge their skills, you may often wonder how much cricketers get paid for their craft. So keep reading to satiate your curiosity.
According to BCCI’s announcement of the central contracts for the 2022/2023 season, the Board of Control for Cricket has retained the same grading system used in the last few years. The players are awarded central contracts per four different grades. The grade categories are A+, A, B, and C for male cricketers and A, B, and C for female cricketers. Here’s a breakdown of the grades and the salaries of the players belonging to specific categories
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Grade A+
In the Indian cricket central contracts, this is the highest grade and is typically reserved for players who have consistently performed in the last twelve months or are the captain in one or two formats.
The male players included in this grade are Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Rohit Sharma (T20 and ODI captain). Players in this grade draw a base annual salary of INR 7 crores.
Grade A
The second highest-rated grade is Grade A, which includes players who have consistently played international cricket representing India in one or two formats. The base annual salary for a Grade A male cricketer is INR 5 crores. The players in this grade category are Mohammad Shami, Rishabh Pant, Ajinkya Rahane, R. Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, and KL Rahul.
Grade A is the highest grade for female crickets, and players included in this category are Mithali Raj, Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, and Poonam Yadav. The base annual salary is INR 50 lakhs.
Grade B
The annual salary of the male players in Grade B is INR 3 crores. For the 2022/2023 season, seven players are included in this grade. These crickets are chosen because of their consistency in the national team, but their performance hasn’t been up to par in the last twelve months. The players included in the grade are Mayank Agarwal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur, and Wriddhiman Saha.
The female players in Grade B are Shikha Pandey, Jhulan Goswami, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, and Ekta Bisht. These players get an annual salary of INR 30 lakhs.
Grade C
The players included in the Grade C category are inconsistent in the national team, but they are retained in the central contract for twelve months. The male players in this grade are paid INR 1 crore a year. The players are Kuldeep Yadav, Deepak Chahar, Axar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill, Navdeep Saini, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Hanuma Vihari, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shreyas Iyer, and Shubman Gill.
The female players in this grade category earn an annual salary of INR 10 lakhs. The players included are Anuja Patil, Radha Yadav, Mona Meshram, Veda Krishnamurthy, D Hemalatha, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Mansi Joshi, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Punam Raut, and Taniya Bhatia.
Match Fees
Besides the basic base yearly salary, cricketers are compensated for the number of matches they play at the international level. Match fees also depend on the number of sponsors for the event and other factors.
Players get a match fee per match. For instance, the Test Match fee is INR 15 lakhs, regardless of the grading system of the male cricketers. The ODI match fee is INR 6 lakhs, and the T20 match fee is 3 lakh. However, since Rohit Sharma is the captain of ODI and T20, he is drawing a fee of INR 7.2 lakh for ODI matches and INR 3.6 lakh for T20 matches.
On the contrary, senior female cricketers are paid around INR 20,000 per day, and the wage is equal to an under-19 male cricketer. On average, male cricketers make around INR 60,000 per day per match.
The salary disparity between men and women cricketers is primarily due to the lack of revenue from women’s cricket. Hopefully, the situation will improve in the future when women’s cricket starts to get as much revenue as men’s cricket.
The Bottom Line
These are the salaries of the men’s and women’s cricket teams. You also get an idea of the grade categories the players belong to and why they are put into the different categories. If you are engaged in fantasy cricket, knowing which grade the player belongs to will help you make an informed choice. In addition, you can understand the consistency and performance of the player. So, when you make your virtual team selection, you will choose the right players and beat your opponent.
Besides knowing the players’ salaries, following their current form and performance is critical. You must also learn about the different terms and how the weather and pitch impact the results of a cricket match.
Armed with so much information, you can flex your knowledge in front of friends or other online fantasy cricket players.
