Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Anushka Sharma React After BCCI Announces Equal Pay To Men And Women Cricketers

The BCCI secretary Jay Shah made a landmark decision of ‘pay equity policy’ on Thursday, October 27, as the cricket organisation announced that it will pay equal match fees to its centrally-contracted female and male players in a bid to promote gender equality in cricket.

Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Anushka Sharma, Taapsee Pannu, and many other Bollywood celebrities welcomed this revolutionary step.

According to the newly introduced system, the Indian women cricketers will now receive Rs 15 lakh per Test, Rs 6 lakh per ODI, and Rs 3 lakh per T20I, the same as their male counterparts. Earlier, the women players received Rs 1 lakh each for ODIs and T20Is while the match fee for a Test match was Rs 4 lakh.

Quoting Jay Shah’s tweet, the Pathaan star tweeted, “What a good front foot shot. Sports being such an equaliser (in more ways than one) hoping it will pave the way for others to follow.” The Ram Setu star wrote, “Dil khush ho gaya yeh padhkar, chhaa gaye @BCCI @JayShah! It’s an absolutely brilliant decision, will go a long way in making our women players take up professional cricket.”

Taapsee, who played former Indian captain Mithali Raj in the 2022 film Shaabash Mithu, expressed her gratitude towards BCCI as she wrote, “A huge step towards equal pay for equal work. Thank you BCCI for leading with example”. Taking to her Instagram Stories, Anushka shared the screenshot of BCCI secretary Jay Shah’s tweet and reacted to the post with three clapping emojis. The actor is set to play former pacer Jhulan Goswami in the upcoming film Chakda Xpress.

Recently, the Indian women’s cricket team triumphed in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh, beating Sri Lanka by eight wickets. The team also won the country’s first-ever silver medal in cricket at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham earlier this year. In the last Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the BCCI, the cricket board also announced the first-ever women’s IPL that is scheduled to take place next year.

Earlier this year, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) had struck a deal with the country’s players’ association, which enabled the women cricketers to earn as much as the male players, while Cricket Australia (CA) is also working to do away with gender disparity. India thus became only the second country in international cricket to implement equal pay.