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Just after a few days of being excessively criticized for the striking wage gap between centrally contracted men and women cricketers, the BCCI has come under another scrutiny for its handling of women’s cricket. As per reports, the board is yet to pay the women cricketers the prize money from the ICC T20 World Cup which took place in March 2020.
Notably, the women’s team showed an excellent performance throughout the 2020 World Cup and reached the final where they lost to Australia. For their performance at the T20 tournament, the women’s team were about to receive a prize money of $500,000. However, the amount had to be received by BCCI first and then distributed among the players.
It is learned that even after receiving the whole money from ICC, the Indian board still holds the prize money of the women cricketers for more than a year now. As per the protocol, the prize money given by ICC needs to be allocated among players within two weeks of receiving it from the the body.
BCCI reportedly claims of receiving the prize money late
The BCCI has been facing a lot of criticism, soon after the news got to the social media. However, in the follow up, the cricket governing body of India has issued a statement clarifying that all the players would get their shares in the coming week.
“The members of the Indian women’s cricket team will be getting the share of their prize money by the end of this week. The transactions have been processed and I am expecting that they will receive their share very soon,” a senior board functionary said as quoted by Times of India.
He further went on to mention that they received the prize money amount late last year from the ICC. Besides, all the payments, be it the annual contracts, domestic fees, etc., are taking longer than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.