The Board of Governors of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday morning held their second meeting of the year, 58th overall, via a videoconference under the chairmanship of Ehsan Mani.
The BoG approved an Rs. 7.76 billion operating expenditure budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year, which is a 10% reduction from the 2019-20 budget as part of the PCB’s austerity, robust financial management, and belt-tightening exercise.
Without compromising and reducing any activities from the 2019-20 activities, the PCB has allocated 71.2% of the overall budget for cricket-related activities.
The allocated 71.2% cricket budget includes 25.2% for domestic cricket (events and players/match officials/player support personnel contracts and High-Performance Centre costs), 19.3% for international cricket (home/away series and player contracts), 5.5% for women’s cricket (home/away cricket and player contracts), 19.7% for PSL 2021 and 1.5% for Medical and Sport Sciences.
While forecasting shortfall in revenues due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has left the fate of revenues from international events hanging in balance and may also affect PCB’s commercial program, the BoG has agreed to continue investment on infrastructure development by approving Rs. 1.22billion budget for capital expenditure, a reduction of approximately Rs. 800 million from 2019-20.
PCB Chief Executive Wasim Khan briefed the BoG on the new 12-month merit-based domestic player contracts for the 2020-21 season. The new contracts will come into effect from 1 August 2020.
ALSO READ
PCB Reveals 5-Year Plan to be Rated Among the Most Credible Cricket Boards
According to the new monthly retainer structure, the PCB will again offer 192 leading domestic players (32 from each of the six Cricket Associations) performance-based contracts, but instead of paying a flat monthly retainer of Rs. 50,000 to all players, this season slab-wise payments will be made.
The new monthly retainer structure is:
- Category A+ = 10 players, Rs. 150,000 per month
- Category A = 38 players, Rs. 85,000 per month
- Category B = 48 players, Rs. 75,000 per month
- Category C = 72 players, Rs. 65,000 per month
- Category D = 24 players, Rs. 40,000 per month
In addition to the revised monthly retainers, the players will also be paid match fees as per the following structure (in Rs.):
| 4-day
1st XI FC |
3-day
2nd XI |
50-over
1st XI |
50-over
2nd XI |
T20
1st XI |
T20
2nd XI |
3-day
1st U19 |
50-over
U19 |
|
| Playing XI | 60,000 | 25,000 | 40,000 | 15,000 | 40,000 | 15,000 | 10,000 | 5,000 |
| Reserves | 24,000 | 10,000 | 16,000 | 6,000 | 16,000 | 6,000 | 4,000 | 2,000 |
“Overall, we have increased our investment by 46% in our domestic contract retainers, as compared to last year. We have also created a category based retainer system that will better reward and incentivize the high-performing cricketers”, Wasim Khan said.
“The PCB is optimistic this model will further enhance competitiveness amongst the players, which, in turn, will contribute in the overall uplifting of our domestic cricket”, he further added.
What are your thoughts on the new structure? Let us know in the comments.
