The Women’s Hundred will get an £800,000 salary investment from the England and Wales Cricket Board ECB in order to draw top players from across the world for the next competition. With men’s salary projected to remain stagnant for a third consecutive season, it will also reduce the gender pay gap in the league.
All of the league’s teams will see a 40% hike in the payroll limit, according to ESPNcrininfo. Each team’s salary cap was £250,000 in 2022; going forward, it will be £350,000. The squad’s two biggest earners, who previously made £31,250 in 2023, will now receive £50,000 under the new arrangement.
In the meanwhile, there is a significant salary difference between Women’s Hundred and Women’s Premier League in India. Australians Tahlia McGrath and Ashleigh Gardner withdrew from the competition’s previous edition due to unsatisfactory financial terms.
Smriti Mandhana of Royal Challengers Bangalore is the highest-paid cricket player in the league, taking home INR 3.4 crore (£320,000), far more than the ECB offers.
The men’s Hundred’s salaries are expected to remain unchanged until 2023. The highest-paid cricket player will get £125,000, and each squad will have a wage ceiling of £1 million. The ECB has failed to take into consideration the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket’s (ICEC) advice for equal remuneration in the Men’s and Women’s Hundred by 2025, given the considerable difference that still exists.
Even with a pay increase, female cricket players will only make approximately 35% of what their male colleagues get. The disparity is still quite large even though it’s 10% more what they used to make in 2023. There’s still a long way to go in franchise cricket, but many national bodies have embraced equal pay for men and female cricket players.
The Women’s Hundred is scheduled to occur in July and August of this year. Prior to the T20 World Cup, it will provide the players with an excellent platform that should encourage more participation from players abroad.
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