REASONS WE WANT TO HELP
World Cup winner Eoin ready to bite bullet
ENGLAND’S top cricketers are open to taking a pay cut – even though they have been promised their contracts in full.
The ECB have guaranteed the 12-month deals, worth between £170,000 for white ball and £700,000 for red-ball players, but their income relies on cricket being played and reserves are running low.
Until it is clearer how much of the season will be lost, the question over game-wide pay cuts is up in the air, but it is estimated an entire summer with no cricket would cost the game £300m.
Negotiations over what percentage will be lost and how it will work have yet to begin but World Cup-winning oneday skipper Eoin Morgan confirmed that players were willing to help.
“As players, we are open to helping in whatever way possible,” he said. “At the moment answering how we can help is difficult. I’m extremely willing to help where I know it will make a difference. I’m open to absolutely everything.
“I’m aware how serious the situation is and aware how everyone will be affected, from top to toe, within the game and every sport.”
Despite a £40m package being rerouted to the counties, the lack of cricket and other functions has left some clubs looking to cut their costs further by furloughing staff and asking players to take pay cuts.
ECB chief executive Tom Harrison has sent a letter to his counterpart at the Professional Cricketers’ Association, Tony Irish, trying to gather support for players across the game to take a 20 per cent pay cut, which would save £8m.
In a separate letter to centrally contracted players not included in that figure, Harrison said the ECB would honour those payments for this year in full.
But that would leave England players untouched while county pros suffer pay cuts, which is why the PCA are keen to have their members act in unison rather than separately.
Harrison and his executive team, including England’s director of cricket Ashley Giles, have taken a 25 per cent pay cut for three months.
But they all have salaried jobs they can return to and make up the shortfall in the future, whereas players in the final year of their contracts have no such guarantee.
Morgan, who welcomed a son, his first child, this month, did confirm that he intends to stay on as England captain for the next two T20 World Cups, still slated to take place in Australia in October and in 2021 in India.