At a glance
Women cricketers join the men under the Twenty20 Super Smash banner for the first time today.
From December 22, they play televised doubleheaders on the same pitches at the likes of Seddon Park or the Basin Reserve.
While that’s an exciting development for the women’s game in New Zealand the pay gap remains as wide as ever: men $575 per game, women $0 per game. No match fee.
The women’s competition opens at Lincoln, near Christchurch, today with a full round running until Sunday, featuring White Ferns stars such as Suzie Bates, Sophie Devine and Amy Satterthwaite preparing for next month’s Women’s World Twenty20 in the Caribbean.
While the top 15 White Ferns are on annual retainers ranging from $21,000 to $35,000, plus match fees of $310 per T20 international and $420 per one-day international, they won’t earn a cent from their domestic T20 appearances in what is still an amateur competition despite the new bells and whistles.
They make their big money overseas, in the Australian and England competitions from which Bates, Devine and Satterthwaite can boost their annual earnings over $100,000,
understands. Meanwhile Wellington Blaze players who aren’t centrally contracted like Devine and teenage star Amelia Kerr will collect a daily allowance of around $50 for the next four days’ work.
In the words of one person connected with the women’s game: ‘‘NZ Cricket are going to have to move with the times. Other countries certainly are. They are moving, but not fast enough.’’
Even cashed up Northern Districts won’t be paying its Spirit players after its plans to match the men’s fee of $575 in televised doubleheaders was stymied by NZC.
No one would speak on the record but was told a senior figure at NZC told ND officials such a payment would jeopardise the upcoming negotiations for the White Ferns Memorandum of Understanding which expires on July 31 next year. Other major associations, in a much tighter financial state, couldn’t commit to such a payment.
NZC public affairs manager Richard Boock said it welcomed ‘‘all initiatives which help grow the women’s game in a sustainable and meaningful fashion’’.
But he added the decision to pay domestic women players or not was Northern Districts’ alone (ND has previously paid its women players, it is understood).
It’s a similar situation in rugby, where Farah Palmer Cup players are amateurs, in televised matches alongside the men’s Mitre 10 Cup professionals.
All going well, this may be the last season of such a pay disparity in cricket’s Super Smash. A professional women’s T20 competition looks likely.
Said Boock: ‘‘We’re in the early stages of discussing [with the NZCPA and MAs] the process for the new women’s MoU, which is likely to cover all women’s professional cricket rather than solely the White Ferns. We have agreed on an aligned and collective approach.’’
New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association boss Heath Mills said negotiations for the new women’s MoU would start in the next few months, and was a chance to look at the women’s game as a whole.
The NZCPA’s starting point was development of players into the White Ferns, a potential winter programme and NZA schedule as the men’s game had adopted. ‘‘In our conversations with players that’s a priority for them.’’
Mills hadn’t received complaints from domestic women players about a lack of payment. Auckland Hearts v Otago Sparks, Central Hinds v Northern Spirit, Canterbury Magicians v Wellington Blaze.
All games 2.30pm at Lincoln. *All sides play one full round from today to Sunday, before doubleheaders get under way on December 22.
‘‘NZ Cricket are going to have to move with the times. Other countries are.’’
A person connected with the women’s game
Women’s Twenty20 Super Smash, round one, today: