BCCI Announces Annual Player Retainership For Women’s Stars. Harmanpreet, Smriti, Deepti In Grade A | Cricket News

BCCI announced annual contracts (player retainership) for Indian women cricketers on Thursday. Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and all-rounder Deepti Sharma were placed in top grade. Spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad has been demoted to B category. Leg spinner Poonam Yadav, who was in the A category last year, doesn’t have a contract at all after falling down in the pecking order. She last played for India in March 2022. In a release, the BCCI said: “The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Thursday announced the Annual Player Contracts for Team India (Senior Women) for the 2022-23 season.” The board, however, didn’t specify the pay structure for each category in the release. The grade structures are as under:- 

Grade A

1. Ms. Harmanpreet Kaur
2. Ms. Smriti Mandhana
3. Ms. Deepti Sharma

Grade B

1. Ms Renuka Thakur
2. Ms. Jemimah Rodrigues
3. Ms. Shafali Verma
4. Ms. Richa Ghosh
5. Ms. Rajeshwari Gayakwad

Grade C

1. Ms. Meghna Singh
2. Ms. Devika Vaidya
3. Ms. Sabbineni Meghana
4. Ms. Anjali Sarvani
5. Ms. Pooja Vastrakar
6. Ms. Sneh Rana
7. Ms. Radha Yadav
8. Ms. Harleen Deol
9. Ms. Yastika Bhatia

The annual retainership was last announced by the BCCI for the 2020-21 season where the players were divided in three categories too. Grade A fetched a player an annual salary of INR 50 lakh while a Grade B player earned INR 30 lakh. For a Grade C player, the annual salary was INR 10 lakh.

Spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad has been demoted to B category. Leg spinner Poonam Yadav, who was in the A category last year, doesn’t have a contract at all after falling down in the pecking order. She last played for India in March 2022.

Veteran pacer Shikha Pandey, who had made a surprise comeback for the T20 World Cup in South Africa, finds herself without a contract and so does wicket-keeper Taniya Bhatia.

Pacer Renuka Thakur, who did not have a contract last year, has been bracketed straight into the B category after a stellar season.

Richa Ghosh and Jemimah Rodrigues have moved up from C to B category. New entrants in Category C include pacer Meghna Singh, batter Devika Vaidya, opener S Meghana, Radha Yadav, left-arm pacer Anjali Sarvani and batter Yastika Bhatia.

Harleen Deol and Sneh Rana remain in the lowest category while injury prone all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar has been demoted to C from B.

In a landmark announcement last year, the BCCI had revealed that its men’s and women’s cricketers would now earn the same match fees. This means that like their men’s team counterparts, the women’s cricketers will earn INR 15 lakhs for a Test, 6 lahks for an ODI, and 3 lakhs for a T20I. Earlier, the team used to earn INR 1 lakh for an ODI or T20I appearance, and Rs. 2.5 lakh for a Test match.

When it comes to the retainership figures, however, the women’s cricketers still remain way behind men’s. In the men’s team, the top-category players are placed in Grade A+ and earn INR 7 crore annually.

With PTI inputs