Salaries rise for England’s best
Elite players see pay raised,
though domestic structure
remains unresolved heading to 2020England’s leading women’s cricketers
are expected to be paid twice as well
in 2021 as they were while winning the
2017 World Cup.
As England headed into the fi rst
international matches of the summer,
salaries for the 22 contracted women’s
players increased by 40 per cent, while
10 of the best-performing players have
seen a 50 per cent hike in pay.
The move took England’s players
closer in remuneration to the leading
players from Australia and India. As of
the striking of their bumper pay deal
in October 2017, Cricket Australia are
now paying international players an
average of £102,800 per year.
India’s path to the World Cup fi nal
last summer – when BCCI o cials
were in the Lord’s pavilion to
see a format of the game
their board had previously
overlooked – has led to a
watershed increase in pay for
their Grade A players, up to
around £58,000.
There is, however,
ongoing uncertainty
about what happens
to English players
beneath international
level. The ECB’s
introduction of The
100 from the year 2020
brings women’s cricket
into brand alignment with
the leading men’s short-
form tournament – as has
been the case in Australiasince 2015/16.
However, it will mean the abolition of
the Kia Super League, the ECB’s elite
T20 women’s tournament, after just
four seasons. It seems unlikely that
the Vitality T20 county tournament
will be deemed su cient to develop
players for international cricket, given
the entire rationale of the KSL was to
bridge the gap between domestic and
international cricket.
The ECB’s head of women’s cricket,
Clare Connor (pictured), while non-
committal about another layer of
T20, declared the ECB’s intention to
strengthen women’s county cricket
when the new County Partnerships
Agreement comes into e ect in 2020.
Connor said: “Within [the CPA] we
have the chance to improve women’s
domestic cricket. We have to use the
opportunity from 2020 to create an
equal system for girls to fulfi l their
potential, as we do for boys. We are
trying to appeal to women, girls and
families, partly because it’s completely
the right thing to do, but also because
of the business case for the game
as a whole.
“We currently don’t invest
in talented girls through the
same county pathways that
develop talented boys. We
have to show a little girl
playing All Stars Cricket on
a Friday night that there is
a pathway that’s inclusive,
clear, welcoming and well-
resourced so that she has
as equal a chance as a boy to
achieve her potential. That’s
the next challenge for me and
for the game to take on.”round the edges, but in a couple of years there
are enough matches to override the early data
setbacks.”
It seems the incentive is needed in China
and the USA – two of the world’s economic
powerhouses, and proud Olympic nations.
The ICC accorded them with special project
status in the 2000s, and MCC Women have
toured both countries. It was hoped that the
smaller pool of competitive teams in women’s
cricket would make it easier for both to qualify
for the Women’s World T20. Those hopes
have proved unfounded.
It could be argued that US cricket never
stood a chance given all its administrative
issues. The USA Cricket Association were
fi nally expelled by the ICC last year. (Just this
month, USACA president Gladstone Dainty
and board member Linden Dodson sued the
ICC and its chief executive David Richardson
for defamation, seeking US$2m in damages.)
The USA now has a new governing body.
So peripheral is women’s cricket in the
Americas that the region has not held a
World T20 qualifi er since 2012. USA women
were given special dispensation to join the
European qualifi ers for this World T20, though
Scotland and the Netherlands brushed them
aside. There are said to be only around 100
women playing regularly across the USA, and
just 45 attended ICC Combines trials in 2016.
Cricket has a long way to go to puncture the
American psyche, even more so for women.
Since 2015, when they made it to the global
qualifi er for the fi rst time, China’s women have
fallen back alarmingly, despite all the millions
of dollars plunged in to the Chinese project.
They were expected to qualify in Asia behind
Thailand this time, but were beaten to the
punch by the UAE. So the ICC’s upcoming new
China strategy is a crucial document.
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