In a historic move aimed at ensuring gender pay parity in Indian cricket for good, the BCCI has introduced equal pay for India's male and female contracted cricketers, BCCI secretary Jay Shah announced in a tweet on Thursday. 

"I'm pleased to announce @BCCI's first step towards tackling discrimination. We are implementing pay equity policy for our contracted @BCCIWomen cricketers. The match fee for both Men and Women Cricketers will be the same as we move into a new era of gender equality in Indian Cricket," Shah tweeted, marking October 27 as a red letter day for women's cricketers in India.

It means that the likes of India women's team captain Harmanpreet Kaur and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana will receive the same amount of match fee as Indian men's team captain Rohit Sharma and superstar Virat Kohli. 

"This logically means that from now onwards, both the men and women cricketers will receive the same amount of match fee in domestic cricket too," a source in the Board told TOI. India's male cricketers, of course, will still earn more in terms of match fee as they play more international matches compared to their women counterparts in India.

India is thus the second country after New Zealand to introduce pay parity for its male and female contracted cricketers. On July 5 this year, New Zealand Cricket (NZC), after signing a ground-breaking five-year deal with the players' association that started from August 1, had announced that New Zealand's men and women players would be paid the same match fees across all formats and competitions. 

As per the NZC agreement, professional women's players receive equity in matters such as travel, accommodation, and the playing and training environment-something that the BCCI has already implemented.

Source: The Times of India

BDST: 1503 HRS, OCT 27, 2022
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