Virat Kohli and Co. can now fetch Rs 12 crore per annum

Indian captain Virat Kohli and his boys could well be the richest cricketers in the world in terms of salaries. British and Australian cricketers don’t associate much with product endorsements while the likes of Kohli and MS Dhoni can be seen in numerous TV ads.  Kohli, Dhoni and the head coach of the Indian team Ravi Shastri had a meeting with the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) over pay hike for players.

It has been learnt that cricketers with the Grade A contracts could be paid around Rs 12 crore a year, with skipper Virat Kohli’s salary could go sky high. Grade B players may well get anything around Rs 8 crore a year while Grade C players can pocket around Rd 4 crore.

Kohli and Co. set to get richer

As per the current contracts, the seasoned Indian players- Kohli, Ashwin are getting paid Rs 2 crores. Grade B players get Rs 1 crore while the Grade C cricketers bag Rs 50 lakh a year. In the meeting, the trio stressed on the point that Australian skipper Steve Smith bags about 2 million Australian dollars (around Rs 12 crore), and England captain Joe Root also fetches around the same salary as Smith does.

“The discussions went on for more than four hours and focused on the disparity in wage structures between Indian, British, and Australian players. There is no doubt the marquee Indian players are grossly underpaid compared to their British and Australian counterparts,” the source said.

“The effort will be to restore parity,” a CoA source said. There was no agreement as such but this matter will be taken into consideration as the officials believe the Indian cricketers should be at par with the rest. On the field, the Indians players have done extremely well and it will be seen if their plea gets granted.