BCCI Announces Annual Player Retainership For Women's Stars. Harmanpreet, Smriti, Deepti In Grade A

BCCI announced annual contracts (player retainership) for Indian women cricketers on Thursday. Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and all-rounder Deepti Sharma were placed in top grade. In a release, the BCCI said: "The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Thursday announced the Annual Player Contracts for Team India (Senior Women) for the 2022-23 season." The board, however, didn't specify the pay structure for each category in the release. The grade structures are as under:- Grade A

Grade B

Grade C

The annual retainership was last announced by the BCCI for the 2020-21 season where the players were divided in three categories too. Grade A fetched a player an annual salary of INR 50 lakh while a Grade B player earned INR 30 lakh. For a Grade C player, the annual salary was INR 10 lakh.

In a landmark announcement last year, the BCCI had revealed that its men's and women's cricketers would now earn the same match fees. This means that like their men's team counterparts, the women's cricketers will earn INR 15 lakhs for a Test, 6 lahks for an ODI, and 3 lakhs for a T20I. Earlier, the team used to earn INR 1 lakh for an ODI or T20I appearance, and Rs. 2.5 lakh for a Test match.

When it comes to the retainership figures, however, the women's cricketers still remain way behind men's. In the men's team, the top-category players are placed in Grade A+ and earn INR 7 crore annually.