Umpires and match officials still waiting for their pay hike by BCCI

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced major reforms in their pay structure recently. In the first week of March 2018, the popular Indian board decided to give out more share of their revenues to the players. Also, the board announced the central contracts for the upcoming season of cricket. A new bracket of cricketers was formed, under the name of Grade A+ category.

This bracket comprised of players who play for the national side in the three formats of the game. They are set to earn the highest revenue among the cricketers in the country. A net revenue of INR 7 crore was announced for the cricketers of the Grade A+ category. This list includes the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Jasprit Bumrah.

Among the lot, the likes of Shikhar Dhawan have seen a major gain in their revenues. He was promoted from Grade C to Grade A+. In the grade C, he was earning INR 50 lakh. Now, he has seen an upsurge of 1300 per cent pay hike and is set to get INR 7 crore per year. Certainly, the players have benefited a lot by the move taken by the BCCI. Also, the board took care of the domestic cricketers. Their pay scale saw a rise from INR 10000 per match day to INR 35000 per match day.

What about the match officials?

While the BCCI has taken good care of the cricketers, it has fallen short in meeting the needs of the match officials in the country. The match officials include the umpires, the scorers, and the video analysts. The last time the match officials had seen a change in their payment structure was way back in 2012. As per the reports in the Mumbai Mirror, according to the 2012 payment structure, top umpires and ex-ICC umpires made Rs 20,000 per day –others are being given Rs 15,000 per day.

Match referees are paid Rs 15,000 per day while scorers make Rs 5000. This amount is halved in case of a T20 game. Currently, there are about 100 umpires registered with the BCCI centrally. This includes 20 umpires who belong to the Elite Panel. The BCCI acting President CK Khanna had noted that the pay scale of the match officials would be doubled. However, that proposal seems to have hit the red tape for now.

For the latest cricket news, follow CricTracker.