What is the relationship between a cricket board and its players? Master-servant? Employer-employee? Parent-child? Corporate-trade union? Or are they equal partners? Sometimes it is one, at other times it is more of these. Through most of its existence, the Board of Control for Cricket in India believed that he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Over the years, however, there has been a sensible softening of that position, and players have been seen as human beings with human sensibilities who just happen to be wonderfully skilled at sport.
Kapil Dev thought it ought to be a parent-child relationship, others believed the ideal was a mutually beneficial partnership. The current crop of players is happy if it is a professional relationship, with mutual respect and understanding.
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About a decade and a half ago, two leading players, Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid, worked out a system of payments, annual contracts and match fees that was the start of a professional relationship.
The players were to be paid for their skill and drawing power in India’s most popular sport, and that was a giant leap from the somewhat arbitrary manner in which match fees had been distributed earlier. Annual contracts guaranteed security for players who might be injured during the year.
In the past, top players who missed matches or tours owing to injury did not receive payment; it is not difficult to understand the frustration. The BCCI often paid for surgery, but there was no safeguard against selectorial caprice. Playing for India did not come with financial security.
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It wasn’t always easy for the players to get their viewpoint across then. The cricket board tended to see it as the appeal of a trade union. Requests were seen as demands.
The BCCI never thought it important to encourage the formation of a players’ association (something the Lodha Committee has now recommended). In any case, it was easy to divide and rule, since even top players were made only too aware which side their bread was buttered on.
So the 2004 decision to award contracts and increase match fees was something of a revolution.
It was decided then that 26% of the BCCI’s income would be shared by the players, half of that to be given to the international players, 10.6% to those playing domestic cricket and the remaining 2.4% for juniors and women. There was no particular logic to it (the story doing the rounds then was that BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya had heard Australian players were being paid 25 percent and he wanted to be one-up). But at least a system was finally in place.
Still, even that 26& was not precisely that. The BCCI excluded 70& of the amount from media rights. If the same 26% were to be used as the base today, the players have a right to expect not just that the full income from media rights be put into the pool, but also a chunk from the IPL money.
Currently players in Grade ‘A’ earn ₹2 crore annually, about a third of what those in England and Australia get. The captains in those countries receive an additional 25% each.
Indian players — internationals, juniors, women, Ranji and other first-class cricketers — certainly deserve a hike in pay to bring them on par with global standards. Any long, drawn-out negotiation can only be harmful for cricket in India.
The BCCI has the money (brought in by the players), and increasing salaries is not likely to move it away from any development schemes. The BCCI gives its State associations ₹30 crore annually and is not fussed about how that money is spent. That method of spreading happiness in return for votes might come to an end now, thanks to the Supreme Court.
The hike ought not to be just for the international players. First class cricketers need a boost too, something that Harbhajan Singh pointed out recently. The State associations must have a contracts system in place too. For a large portion of India’s first class players, cricket is their only source of income.
Once again it is Kumble who is the spokesman for the players, this time supported by skipper Kohli.
Salary discussions can be long and agonising. Australia is in the throes of one just now; it has been going on for six months. Cricket Australia has said that if players don’t sign on to a top-down deal by June 30, it would effectively call for a lockout! The players have hinted on social media that the Ashes might be in danger. Such extreme steps are usually avoidable.
It is unlikely that the BCCI (or the Committee of Administrators) will allow such a situation to develop in India. It is human nature to believe that those who earn more than you do are overpaid — and cricketers in particular have got a bad press where salaries are concerned. The IPL has only added to that. Yet players and coaches are professionals, and have a right to expect the best salaries that the market has to offer.