Kumble bats for big hike in salaries

NEW DELHI: India team captain Virat Kohli and coach Anil Kumble have demanded a hike of 150% in annual retainership for Grade A players, according to a report in PTI.

The BCCI had doubled the retainership of Grade A players from ~1 crore to ~2 crore earlier this year. However, the players were unhappy and instead cited the money being earned by Australian and English players like Steve Smith and Joe Root --reportedly between ~8 crore and ~12 crore.

They are now demanding ~5 crore for players in the top bracket. Grade A has seven players – Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, R Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja and Murali Vijay.

Kumble met officials in Hyderabad while Kohli joined the meeting via Skype. The BCCI officials will prepare a report and hand it over to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) which will take the final call.

The CoA has been empathising with the players and it remains to be seen if they’ll agree to this demand. It had played a key role in doubling player retainerships.

Kumble & Co have also been demanding a hike in fees for the support staff and put forward a demand to that effect on Sunday.

NOC TO IRFAN PATHAN, RP SINGH REVOKED

The BCCI withdrew the No Objection Certificate to Irfan Pathan and RP Singh to participate in a T20 match that was part of the Bahrain Cricket Festival.

It is learnt that the match between Irfan Falcons and Misbah Falcons was to have taken place on Friday, but BCCI withdrew the NOC before the game, allowing the former India internationals to only support the match from the sidelines.

Sources say invitations to banned players, India’s S Sreesanth and Mohammad Ashraful of Bangladesh prompted the Indian board to revoke the NOC. The Board rarely allows Indian cricketers to feature in foreign domestic T20 leagues and games. The organisers had reportedly gone overboard with the promotion of the event, which came to everyone’s notice.