Salary Of Women’s Cricketers In India

Women’s international cricket began long back in 1934 with a test match between England and Australia. But India played their maiden international match in 1976 against West Indies in tests. Three years later in the 1978 World Cup, India made their ODI debut against England women’s team at Eden Gardens. 

However, back then Women’s cricket was not broadcasted by any channel as not many people were interested to watch it. Former captain of the Indian Women’s team, Mithali Raj became the youngest player to hit a double century in women’s cricket in 2002 against a quality bowling side of England but no one knows about it because no channel recorded it. 

Women would play top-notch cricket since 2000 but still, people believed that they can not make money out of it by broadcasting. Especially, in India, a single person could not think that women can pick up a bat and play cricket. Low interest among fans became the reason for the Indian Women’s team not getting any sponsorship until 2005 when Nike became the first kit sponsor for the Women’s in Blue. It was a day to cherish for the Indian cricketer following the struggle and financial stability which led them to bear their own expenses for kits, trips, and traveling. 

The salary of cricketers relies on the number of sponsors and some other factors for an event. And certainly, men’s cricket has more sponsorships than women’s cricket, and so is their salary. 

From 2015-16 to 2020-21, A women cricketer would get INR 4 lakhs salary for a test match and INR 1 lakh salary for a T20 and ODI match. And there used to be two grades of players, A-grade players pocketed INR 15 Lakhs as salary annually, while INR 10 Lakhs was reserved for the B Grade cricketers per year. 

In October 2022, BCCI actuated the historic move of pay equity to bridge the gap between male and female cricketers. BCCI Secretary Jay Shah announced that a female cricketer would same match salary as a male cricketer which means-

Salary Of Indian Women’s Cricket Team

INR 15 Lakhs for a test

INR 6 Lakhs for an ODI

INR 3 Lakhs for a T20

Salary of Indian Women’s Cricketers Grade Wise

Nevertheless, the annual payment remains the same as it was declared in 2021-2022. BCCI added a new category named Grade C along with Grade A and B. But the annual salary of Grade A players increased from 15 Lakhs to 50 Lakhs and Grade B from 10 Lakhs to 30 Lakhs. Whereas, the latest C Category players will take 10 Lakhs rupees home.

Grades & Women’s Cricketers In It

Grade A Women’s Cricketers- Harmanpreet Kaur ©, Smriti Mandhana (VC), and Poonam Yadav. 

Grade B Women’s Cricketer- Deepti Sharma, Poonam Raut, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Shafali Verma, Radha Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Tanya Bhatia, and Jemimah Rodrigues. 

Grade C Women’s Cricketers- Mansi Joshi, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Priya Punia, and Richa Ghosh. 

Salary of Indian Women’s Domestic Cricket Team

If we talk about the salary of senior domestic women players in India, they make INR 20000 per day being a part of the playing xi. Earlier the fee was 12000 rupees every day. On the other hand, the benched players of the squad receive half of the actual amount.