In the midst of a lot of speculative talk about major changes proposed within the Indian cricket team, the Board Of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is considering implementing variable pay for the players–where the money shall be deducted if they fail to deliver in the field-as well. The game’s most passionate board will be released after the results of the recent test assignments against New Zealand and Australia by adopting what should be a more corporate-like structure- where players will be awarded and penalised in monetary terms based on their performance.
A new, fresh system should run its course with the arrival of BCCI’s new secretary and treasurer, Devajit Saikia, and Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, respectively-necessitating most changes expected to occur in the making and handling of players. One of these new features will be performance-based remuneration.
“It was only one of the suggestions that players should be held accountable, that if their performance was not to the level the way it’s expected, they should lose some of their variable pays,” an official informed The Indian Express. A performance-based structure already lays down that, for the season 2022-23 onwards, every player is estimated to earn an incentive of INR 30 lakh for each Test played, the Catch being that players will be expected to earn an even higher pay at INR 45 lakh, if they have played in over 75% of the games in a calendar year.
Perhaps some old-fashioned thinking on the issue of Test cricket versus limited-overs cricket has to change, but then again, nothing will guarantee the worth of a player for the longest format.
“While the team management believes in the value of test cricket, this is not shared by many players, and this is something that was discussed in connection with the ongoing teams; there was a particular word about their not being too serious about losing a test,” the report source said.
“They asked the BCCI to make sure it treats the next-gen players in such a way that they value a Test cap more than a career in white-ball cricket.”