India women yet to get prize share

New Delhi, May 23: The Indian women cricketers, who made the final of last year’s World T20 in Australia, will receive their share from the $500,000 prize money by the end of this week, a senior BCCI official said on Sunday after it came to light that they are yet to be paid.

A report in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper quoted an official from the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) as saying that the BCCI is yet to disburse the runner-up prize money of the global event, which was held in February-March last year.

India were led by Harmanpreet Kaur at the marquee event, where they lost to Australia in the final.

“The members of the Indian women’s cricket team will be getting the share of their prize money by the end of this week. The transactions have been processed and I am expecting that they will receive their share very soon,” the senior board functionary said.

Asked about the delay, he said: “We received the prize money amount late last year.”

The processing of players’ payments in BCCI does take around three to four months for all teams (across age groups).

Reacting to a UK newspaper report, the BCCI said women’s team will receive their share from the $500,000 prize money by the end of this week.

However, since last year, the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai have remained shut due to the Covid-19 situation across the country leading to delay in payments all across.

“It’s not just one payment for women. Whether it’s the central contract of the men’s team, international match fees, domestic fees of men and women, everything is taking a bit of time because of the prevailing situation,” a former BCCI office-bearer, still associated with a state unit, said.

He further informed: “Even before the Covid situation worsened, the domestic season would end in March and the complete payments were only cleared by September.

“So, in this case you need to check when did BCCI receive the payments. If they received just after the tournament, then it’s a delay but processing does take some time. And to the best of my knowledge, it’s the same for both men and women.”