There’s good news for Caribbean women who play cricket: the West Indies have promised to maintain gender pay parity. Within the cricket community, recent years have witnessed the implementation of pay parity measures by nations such as New Zealand, India, Australia, South Africa, and England.
The West Indies are currently attempting to follow suit. On January 25, the WI took a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing to begin the process of paying all of their players equally, regardless of gender.
By signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), representatives of WI and the WIs Players’ Association (WIPA) agreed to work toward achieving parity for all WI cricket players by October 1, 2027, in terms of international and regional match fees, international captain’s allowances, international team prize money, and regional individual prize money.
The move to guarantee gender pay parity, according to CWI President Dr. Kishore Shallow, is a means of appreciating the enormous contribution made by female cricket players to WI cricket.
“For cricket in the West Indies, today is historic. We are making great progress in building a more progressive and inclusive cricket framework as we restructure remuneration and harmonize performance grading. Kishore notified the International Cricket Council (ICC) that “this move reflects our unwavering commitment to gender equality and acknowledges the immense contributions of female players to West Indies cricket.”
“We made significant changes to our travel policy the year before, requiring the West Indies Senior Women’s team to stay in single rooms when on abroad assignments and travel in business class on all lengthy international flights. This is in perfect accordance with the rules that have been set forth for West Indies Senior Men’s tours. We make a major advancement in closing the gender gap in our cricket community today with the signature of this MOU,” he continued.
We are honored to set out on this path to equal pay for women: CEO of Cricket West Indies, Johnny Grave
According to CWI CEO Johnny Grave, the board hopes to see greater success for the West Indies on the field by enacting a better pay structure and female pay fairness.
We are honored to set out on this path to equal pay for women and men. The notable rises for our female players show how committed we are to recognizing achievement and encouraging equity within our cricketing community. Grave said, “We’ve made strategic decisions to prioritize winning, like raising prize money, rewarding our top players more, and charging starting XI players more for matches.
The women’s team of the WI won the T20 World Cup in 2016, although the men’s squad has won two ODI World Cups (1975 and 1979) and two T20 World Cups (2012).
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