Runners-up in the 2020 World T20, Indian women cricketers still await prize money from BCCI

The Indian women’s cricketers haven’t received the prize money for the World T20 where they ended as the runners-up in the 2020 edition. The Indian team should have collectively received $500,000 (£350,000) a life-changing amount in the women's game.

Tom Moffat, the CEO of Fica, the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations, told Telegraph Sport that the late non-payment of money owing to players is unacceptable for the on-field performance in pinnacle events. 

"Prize money is payable to players for their on-field performance in pinnacle events and the late non-payment of money owing to players is unacceptable," Mr Moffat said. 

"We encourage players in India to consider getting organised as part of a players’ association so they, and the game in India, can benefit from collective player representation in the same way that their fellow professionals around the world do,” he added. 

The International Cricket Council (ICC) had increased the women’s prize pot by 320% in comparison to 2018. The ICC is responsible for paying out the prize money within a week to the respective governing bodies of the team unless the board asks ICC to make the payments directly to the players. 

The prize money that comes from the ICC should be allocated to the players within a couple of weeks. It is up to the board to decide whether the payment would be made equally among all the players or grade-wise. 

If the amount that the Indian team had to receive is split between each player, the prize money that all the players would have got would have been around $33,000 or Rupees 24 lakhs each. 

The Indian women’s team didn’t feature in a single international feature since the World T20 final due to the COVID-19 outburst. The BCCI though had organised the IPL in 2020 and had a four-match tournament for the women players. 

The BCCI has been facing the heat for not handling women’s cricket properly and this is another instance of it especially after the governing body generated a revenue of almost $550 million as they held the IPL 2020 in the UAE during the pandemic.