Australians offered less pay than English rivals

CRICKET Australia wants to make its national stars the best paid sportsmen in Australia.

But as the pay dispute continues to make inroads on a potential $500 million payment pool, the final numbers will still leave Steve Smith and his men behind the old enemy in a worldwide wage battle.

The latest analysis of international cricket wages by the Federation of International Cricketers Associations put England’s centrally contracted players ahead of the Aussies in average earnings.

English skipper Joe Root and his colleagues, ranked fourth in both Tests and ODIs, were listed as collecting an average $1.07 million a year, based on their central retainer with the England and Wales Cricket board, plus match payments for Tests, one-dayers and T20 internationals.

The Aussies, third on the ICC Test rankings and the world’s second best one-day team, were close behind, with an average of $1 million earned for similar output.

The likes of Smith and vicecaptain David Warner do make considerably more, given Cricket Australia has a tiered national contract system that gives greater rewards to the top-ranked players among the 20 contract holders.

Indian stars like captain Virat Kohli make megabucks off the field and in the Indian Premier League — Kohli earned $2.5 million with Royal Challenger Bangalore this year — but their national wages alone ranked them behind Australia and England.

And on the back of a recent $1.8 billion TV deal (for 2020-24), England’s best players are in for a massive bump and could have their ECB retainers alone push towards $1.5 million a year.

Even from a player pay- ment pool of about $500 million for the next five years, Australia’s centrally contracted players have been told their retainers would average about $816,000.

Match payments for those who play all three forms of the game could push the average player’s wage to $1.45 million by the end of 2021-22, a sum that could be less than the English retainer alone.

Australia’s male and female players could get a $120 million pay rise under their next deal should the current proposal before the Australian Cricketers Association be accepted.

And while the big dollars could be on offer for Australia’s best cricketers, veteran Victorian batsman Cameron White urged the warring parties to find common ground soon as plenty of fledgling cricketers were already asking for financial help.

“Training with the Bushrangers, there’s quite a few, especially younger guys, on one-year deals or rookie contracts … who have had to seek assistance from the ACA,” White told RSN. “I see the younger kids in our group ... they are only 17, 18 some of them . . . probably trying to pay for rent, have moved down from the country.”