Explained | What are countries doing to address gender-based pay disparity in cricket?

A few countries have taken steps to move towards equal pay for men and women but a lot remains to be done.

The story so far: In a landmark decision announced on July 5, New Zealand Cricket and the players’ association signed a five-year deal which will enable both male and female cricket players from New Zealand to receive equal pay. The decision will come into force on August 1.

According to the newly-signed agreement, women cricketers at both the international and domestic level will receive the same match fee as men across all formats and competitions.

The Hindu takes a look at what other countries are doing to bridge the wage gap between male and female cricketers.

The gap between salaries for male and female Indian cricketers is huge, but some steps have been taken to bridge it. For 2021-22, payments for centrally-contracted male Indian cricketers are categorised into A+, A, B, and C grades with annual salaries of ₹7 crore, ₹5 crore, ₹3 crore, and ₹1 crore respectively. For female Indian cricketers, the A+ grade does not exist, while players in A, B, and C grades earn ₹50 lakh, ₹30 lakh, and ₹10 lakh annually, according to media reports..

In An Equal Hue: The Way Forward for the Women in Blue, a report on “growing women’s cricket in India”, writers Snehal Pradhan, Karunya Keshav, and Sidhanta Patnaik highlight that this is a significant increase from 2015-16 when female players in grade A were paid ₹15 lakh and in grade B were paid ₹10 lakh. No other grades existed. The increase to the current scale was made in 2019-20.

“We need to understand that the revenue which we get is through men’s cricket. The day women’s cricket starts getting revenue, I will be the first person to say that we need the same thing. But right now, we can’t say that,” Indian cricketer Smriti Mandhana had said in 2020.

In October 2021, Cricket Australia, the sport’s governing body in the country, announced a “significant increase” in payments for female domestic cricketers. It amounted to an Aus$1.2 million increase in retainers – $800,000 for the Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL) and Aus$400,000 for the Weber Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL). The increase would amount to a 22-per-cent increase for WNCL contracted players in 2021-22, and a 14 per cent increase for WBBL contracted players.