Cricketers earning peanuts IT’S ALL ABOUT FIGURES . . .This graphic shows the approximate annual pay cheques which the captains of the world’s Test teams take home. — Cricinfo
IT’S ALL ABOUT FIGURES . . .This graphic shows the approximate annual pay cheques which the captains of the world’s Test teams take home. — Cricinfo

IT’S ALL ABOUT FIGURES . . .This graphic shows the approximate annual pay cheques which the captains of the world’s Test teams take home. — Cricinfo

LONDON. — The highest-earning captain in international cricket in 2017 stands to make nearly 20 times as much as the lowest-earning with the top cricketers in the world earning around $1 million from playing international cricket. Zimbabwean cricketers are, in fact, paid better than their Bangladesh counterparts. Steve Smith, the Australia captain, will earn $1.469 million this year, while his Zimbabwean counterpart Graeme Cremer stands to earn $86 000.

The world’s leading footballers, tennis players, basketball players, golfers and Formula One drivers earn so much more than the leading cricketer that to say cricket is a professional sport feels far-fetched. Cristiano Ronaldo, for instance, earns 40 times as much as Smith just on annual salary; Lewis Hamilton earns 25 times as much; LeBron James 20 times as much; and it goes on. The top Indian earners in international cricket are Virat Kohli, the captain, who pulled in approximately $1 million this year, and coach Ravi Shastri, whose annual salary of $1.17 million is comparable to that of any of the game’s top players.

The figures are based on international cricket, and do not take into account player earnings from T20 leagues, other domestic engagements or endorsements. Most boards pay their players a share of their commercial rights, while others don’t, or distribute them differently. The pay figures in this piece do not include the various bonuses players are paid for wins and individual performances.

Factoring all those in might shuffle the rankings, but that is likelier to happen at the top of the list.  And if anything, it will increase the disparity in earnings between top and bottom. What is crystal clear is that the richer cricket has become, the more inequality it has bred. That, you might say, is a modern truism of the game, but as the calendar is being fundamentally reshaped by domestic T20 leagues and the riches they offer players, the magnitude of that inequality should serve as a clear warning to the international game.

In most cases salary figures and contract details are not made available publicly; the information in this article, culled from their contacts by our correspondents from around the globe, strives to be as accurate as is possible.

*Players from England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand receive a share of their board’s commercial earnings as a guaranteed part of their contracts. Some boards, like Cricket South Africa and CA add these payments to the retainer. The BCCI pays 26 percent of its gross revenue every year to its players; half of that is distributed among international players.

How much each players gets, however, is calculated based on the number of matches they play. The ECB pays the following approximate amounts according to player contract grade: $180 000 (top), $80 000 (mid), $30 000 (lowest). This payment, however, is linked to commercial obligations each player fulfils, and so varies from player to player. It is also not clear whether this is an additional payment on top of each retainer, or whether it is factored into the retainer amounts.

For the purposes of this article, we have taken the payment to be part of the total retainer amount — if, however, you add on the full $180 000 to, say, Joe Root’s total earnings, he nudges slightly ahead of Steven Smith as the highest earner. The BCB does not pay any money from its commercial rights earnings to its players. Pakistan’s players receive a certain amount — thought to be approximately $3000 per game — from the PCB’s main sponsor as logo money, but this is restricted purely to the XI that plays in an international (and so goes also to players not in the central contracts pool). Because of the different ways in how commercial rights are distributed across the globe — or not — the total earnings figures you see can only be close approximates. We know that a clear divide has grown in cricket between the Big Three and the rest, the haves and the have-nots.

What the total earnings figures show (based on the top-earning player in each country), however, is that there are actually four segments: an elite three of Australia, England and India; an upper-middle-class from South Africa; a middle-class quartet of Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand; and finally, a working-class duo of Bangladeshi and Zimbabwean cricketers.

There are four divisions even when it comes to the lowest contract grades, though grouped differently: England and Australia in one; South Africa and West Indies another; India and New Zealand next; and then Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The disparity remains — at about $265 000, an England player on the ECB’s lowest contract (England group their contracts not in grades but in terms of red-ball, white-ball and all-format cricketers) still earns nearly 20 times as much as a Bangladesh player on the lowest contract ($15 000).

If you account for the individual endorsement fees and various other sources of income — most notably T20 league contracts — that exist for the richest cricketers like Kohli and MS Dhoni, the gap between them and elite athletes from football and basketball would still be vast (since the top cricketers’ earnings would still only be somewhere around $3 million). Cricket claims to be among the world’s leading and most popular sports, and its stated aim is to become the world’s favourite sport. If it measured itself in terms of how well its players are paid, it would be laughed off the field. — Cricinfo.

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