The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Indian players sign payment contract

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 02, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Indian players sign payment contract

KOLKATA, DEC. 1. Top Indian cricketers finally entered into a contractual agreement with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) by signing the papers for a graded payment system after a delay of two months.

Twelve top cricketers out of a total of 17, who were offered the contracts earlier, signed the papers on Wednesday, BCCI secretary S. K. Nair said.

The players who signed the contract are: Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, V.V.S. Laxman, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh (all of them in Grade A), Md. Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan and Ashish Nehra (all Grade B) and Murali Kaarthick (Grade C).

The other five cricketers — Yuvraj Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Lakshmipathy Balaji (all in grade B), Parthiv Patel and Aakash Chopra (grade C) — would be signing later after the contract papers are sent to them, Board sources said.

The one-year contract would be effective from October 1, 2004 and the list of the cricketers and their gradation would be reviewed after one year.

As per the contract, players in Grade A get Rs. 50 lakh per year, those in Grade B Rs. 35 lakh and in Grade C Rs. 20 lakh.

Besides the annual contractual payment, players would also receive match fees as per usual practice. But it would be paid to only 11 players playing a particular match.

The match fees at home would be Rs. 2 lakh for a Test match and Rs. 1.60 lakh for an ODI and abroad it would be Rs. 2.40 lakh for a Test and Rs. 1.85 lakh for an ODI.

The BCCI had finalised the contract system in the last week of September.

The players, however, could not sign the papers then as they left for Holland to play a tri-series and returned in October after the Champions Trophy in England. PTI

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