10
Lure Of The Leagues
By Tabrez Janjua for Stani Army in Pakistan Cricket
62 ViewsRana Naved was recently awarded a central contract by the PCB after he turned his back on the ICL. He was placed into category C of the contracts, which would see him earn 100,000 Rupees a month. Since most of the ICL players were wholly blamed for joining the unofficial league and criticised for it; here we’ll take a look at what the Pakistan players are earning and whether this is enough to stop their heads turning.
Below is a list of the value of the contract in each category and it makes for some interesting reading.
Category A Rs 250,000 or £1,840 per month, £22,080 annually.
Category B Rs 175,000 or £1,290 per month, £15,480 annually.
Category C Rs 100,000 or £735 per month, £8,820 annually.
Though they were all pretty surprising, I was most surprised by the earnings of those who would fall into category C. Many of the players who were involved in Pakistan’s recent success and look to be in and around the team for some time to come, fall into this category of just £735 a month. This includes; Rana Naved, Fawad Alam, Saeed Ajmal and Rao Iftikhar. Here in the U.K, someone working at McDonald’s could earn more than that.
Inversely, there are some players in the top category who have either not played at all recently or have demonstrated that category A is one place they should not be. For example; Shoaib Akhtar, Salman Butt and Danish Kaneria.
Baffled? Well so am I. I would love to ask the meritocracy that is the PCB, how they decided on who goes in which category. Salim Altaf was quoted at the time (January 2009) saying: “The central contracts were devised by coach Intikhab Alam, manager Yawar Saeed and chief selector Abdul Qadir and the main criteria was seniority of the players”. Why seniority? Would any other professional organisation in the world, let alone cricket board, do this?
And if it was decided on performances, how do they explain Danish Kaneria? In 2008, Kaneria was in category C but without playing a single game for his nation, he found himself in category A this time around. I have nothing against Danish but I believe for someone who plays Tests only, he should be in category B at the most.
Obviously, this is just the basic wage as added to this would be match fees which players would receive for participating in a game and any awards for individual performances. Yet, this only exacerbates the situation for those in category C as they are less likely to take part in a game and earn individual awards anyway. The gap between categories C and B definitely needs to be smaller.
Taking into account the cost of living in Pakistan, there are still boards around the cricket world who take much better care of their players. I can now see why earning a better living through unofficial leagues such as the ICL did and would continue to appeal to some of Pakistan’s cricketers.
Category A (£22,080 annually)
Shoaib Akhtar, Younis Khan, Danish Kaneria, Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq, Salman Butt, Umar Gul
Category B (£15,480 annually)
Yasir Hameed, Faisal Iqbal, Mohammad Hafeez, Sohail Tanvir
Category C (£8,820 annually)
Rao Iftikhar Anjum, Abdur Rehman, Yasir Arafat, Fawad Alam, Khurram Manzoor, Saeed Ajmal, Sohail Khan, Wahab Riaz, Samiullah Khan Niazi, Sarfraz Ahmad, Nasir Jamshed, Umar Amin, Azhar Ali, Abdul Rauf, Rana-Naved
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August 14th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Hi Stani, still mad at me?
August 14th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
That is not all they make Stani.. that is just their fixed income based on the contract… for every ODI that these players play they make about Rs 300,000 per match.. and for every test match Rs 500,000 per match.. so the players who play more make more money.. the contracts are just to keep them on the payroll and give them a recurring income in times like the off season..
August 15th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Purna,
You took your time….longer than I expected (sign of your stubbornness) but I knew you’d come looking for me. So, is that your version of an apology? Your appearance does suspiciously coincide with the inception of Cricket Minded doesn’t it? I think you just missed me though, even though you won’t admit it.
…and the answer is yes.
Q,
Not sure about ODIs but I read on cricinfo that the Test match fee was 350,000 Rupees per match (previously 250,000). But this would obviously only be for those that played right? Hence the C and B category players who don’t play are comparatively not very well off true?
Apparently they also took away any win bonuses which you’d think would be good things to keep in place to add that bit of encouragement to go for victory.
August 15th, 2009 at 7:02 am
I left you a lovely reply on my blog. And you missed me too!
August 15th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Stani
The players not only get monthly salary but they also get match fee and win bonus, and they get some share from the logo revenue. On top of the money they recieve from PCB some players who are employed by different departments they get salary from there also.
But I do agree wih you that this seniority based categorization of players needs to be revised.
August 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Wasim,
I read on cricinfo that they took the win bonus away. They left only the match fee which was increased slightly but this is no good for those that don’t get a game.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
£735 per month for a professional sportsman sounds terrible. But you live in the UK, surely with the Pak curency it can’t be that bad? Their travel expenses, food & accommodation are free. I am sure they’ve got some endorsement deals and what about the sponsers? If they do a commercial, they get paid. A lot of players also get free goodies. It can’t be that bad?
But then again, cricket is probably Pak’s #1 sport.
August 18th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Hey lightning!
You make some good points Bon. For a relatively poor country, they are quite well off than the average person. Yet, that says more about those running the country and the standard of living than it does about the cricketers’ salaries.
I still think other boards take much better care of their stars comparatively speaking.
August 20th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
That is very little money for an international sportsman.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:51 am
Bella!!!! Welcome!!!
Professionalism was never a Pakistani strong point.