“This is absolutely false” – BCCI slams allegations of some women players not being paid for 8 months of their contract

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has denied reports alleging that some India Women cricketers are not being paid for eight months of their contract of employment.

The BCCI recently issued a list of centrally contracted cricketers for the 2020-21 season. While there were some new entrants and promotions, four players, Veda Krishnamurthy, Ekta Bisht, Anuja Patil and D. Hemalatha, missed out.

Subsequently, a report in The Telegraph (UK) created an uproar by claiming that the four excluded cricketers ‘will not be paid for almost eight months of employment’ after their 2019-20 contract ended in September last year.

As quoted by news agency ANI, a BCCI official has expressed displeasure at the ‘assumptions’ made by the report. The official said the allegations are based on ‘incorrect advice’ and payments have already been made for the contracted period.

“This is absolutely false. Every player is paid in accordance with the terms of the contract with the BCCI. The payments have been made for the contracted period. The claim made in the story essentially assumes that a contract existed for almost eight months for which they would not be paid. This is incorrect, and I can only conclude that this is on the back of incorrect advice. If a contract ended in September 2020 and the payments have been made in relation to that contract, it is wrong to imply otherwise,” the official explained.

According to The Telegraph’s report, all players have been advised to raise invoices for the 8-month old contract.

However, cricketers who were excluded from the new contract ‘were unable to seek alternative employment’ during that time.

During this period India Women played only a couple of limited-overs series against South Africa. Out of the aforementioned four players, only D Hemalatha was a part of the series.

“These are difficult times, we will tighten the system” – BCCI on delayed T20 World Cup payments

The report came hot on the heels of another startling revelation that Indian women players, who finished runners-up in the T20 World Cup, are yet to receive their prize money.

Speaking to ANI, the BCCI official attributed the delay to ‘tremendously difficult’ working conditions during the pandemic and pledged to ‘tighten the system’.

“These are difficult times and we have been working under tremendously difficult conditions and I do not mean this as a justification. We have not been as efficient as we would have liked to be and of course, there have been mistakes and I am not saying that there will be no errors in the future as well. No organization is without its share of errors and with every error that slips through our system, our endeavour is to tighten the system further, which we have done even now,” added the BCCI official.

India Women’s next assignment is an all-format tour to England which will begin with a one-off Test on June 16.