The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) started to compensate the domestic players, both male and female for the Covid hit 2020-21 season. For the state associations that have sent in the duly filled forms, the players have got 50% of their regular earnings while a number of players are yet to receive payments because of procedural delays.
It was the Mohammad Azharuddin-led seven-member working group that formulated the compensation for the Covid-19-affected season by the BCCI. And according to that formula, a player who featured in eight games in the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy would receive INR 11.20 lakh in coherence with what he would have received had the season not been marred with Covid.
Similarly, those players who were in the squad but couldn’t play a game in the 2019-20 season would also get compensation equal to the correspondence fee. All the players are to be compensated ahead of the start of the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy season which begins from January 13 and would go on till March 17, with matches taking place at seven different venues.
The Covid cases are on a rise in the country once again with third-wave eminent. The Vijay Merchant Trophy which is played by U-16 boys was cancelled citing the non-vaccination of players. But it seemed that Ranji would go on as players taking part in the tournament are already double vaccinated.
The match fee for players has been increased with the season and a player with experience of more than 40 First Class games would be getting INR 60,00 per day. Earlier all senior men’s players in the playing xi would get the same amount of INR 35,000. But now a player who has played matches between 20-40 would get INR 50,000 per day while those having played below 20 Games would EARN INR 40,000 per day.
Similarly per day fee for women cricketers was also raised from INR 12,500 to 20,000.
However, along with the perk has also come the side effect as BCCI has reduced the number of games to five at group stages from eight played during the last season of the Ranji Trophy. Players hope that from the next season or whenever the Covid threat subsides, and the format returns to home and away basis, then the teams could play the same eight games as earlier.