No final decision on pay hike of Indian cricketers, says BCCI acting secretary

New Delhi, Dec 15: The Committee of Administrators (CoA) has reportedly accepted the demand of the Indian cricketers' on salary hike. However, the board hasn't taken any final decision over the same.

As per reports, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will soon be presented with the new formula chalked out by the Vinod Rai-led CoA, on which the board will take the final call.

If reports are to be believed, once the BCCI okays the suggestions then the salaries of the Indian cricketers will be doubled.

India skipper Virat Kohli and head coach Ravi Shastri had, last month, presented their case at the meeting with the CoA and asked for a satisfactory hike for the management.

"Senior cricketers are certainly going to get a 100% raise and even domestic players would get the same percentage increase," a source close to CoA was quoted by a Times of India report as saying.

"Since, these cricketers are the reason for BCCI's revenues, can't the board afford another Rs 200 crore for their salaries?" a top board was quoted as saying.

At present, Grade A players earn Rs 2 crore, Grade B players earn Rs 1 crore while those in Grade C earn Rs 50 lakh. If the CoA's recommendations get a nod from the BCCI, then these figures will be doubled.

However, BCCI acting president CK Khanna, later in the day, maintained that nothing constructive has been finalised yet on the matter.

As per an Indian Express report, Khanna said, "Everything is still under discussion. Nothing is finalised. There are chances of having another set of meetings over pay hike proposal. As of now, BCCI acting treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry is working on draft proposal. It will be discussed in BCCI Finance Committee and in SGM."

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly also the raised the issue of low salary for domestic players at the BCCI SGM on Monday, explaining how the players need to be compensated like international players.

"Because of the sheer bulk of the money, the senior Indian cricketers can't be given half of the projected 26% revenue of BCCI. It would be distributed in such a way that domestic cricketers also get big hikes," the official added.

Several senior domestic players have been consistently demanding a hike in their salaries for quite some time.