MUMBAI: The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) will soon be announcing players’ contract for men and women cricketers.
The men’s players’ contracts will be put in place before the Indian team leave for the Nidahas Trophy, a T20 tri-series against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh which will be played from March 6 to 18 in Colombo, Mid-Day reports.
The CoA has decided to go ahead with its own plan as there has been no tangible action forthcoming from the BCCI’s finance committee on a matter that impacts not just the national team players, but also domestic men and women cricketers.
The urgency behind the CoA’s move is that with the IPL season 11 is set to start in April, it doesn’t want a situation where the contracted players are without insurance cover.
“There should not be a situation wherein an India player gets injured and there is no contract and thereby insurance cover,” a person privy to discussions that took place at the CoA meeting at the Cricket Centre here on Tuesday told The Hindu.
According to Mid-Day, the contracts for Team India players are in four slabs – A-plus, A, B and C.
The A-plus category will have players who are consistent or regulars in the Indian team across the all three formats – Tests, ODIs and T20s.
The CoA has entrusted the chairman of selectors MSK Prasad to categorise the players in A-plus, A, B and C grades, the tabloid reports.
The ICC rankings and performances based on the kind of opposition will be certain parameters that will help in gauging the player’s contract category. Under the new guidelines, a player does not become an automatic choice to earn a central contract if he gets selected to play for India. It is learnt that the Indian team management has conveyed to the BCCI and CoA not to count the T20 International as a means to get a central contract.
The new contracts will also see a substantial hike for men’s, women’s and domestic cricketers.
In the last one year, the CoA has had extensive conversations with former head coach Anil Kumble and captain Virat Kohli on the contract/pay structure for the national team, The Hindu reports. Kumble even made a power point presentation to the CoA and BCCI officials during last year’s IPL final in Hyderabad. After Kumble quit the team management following differences with Kohli at the end of last year’s ICC Champions Trophy in England, the CoA has had further discussions with the present key members of the Indian squad.
