Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh recently made an impassionate plea to his former teammate and current head coach of the Indian cricket team, Anil Kumble, to request the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s administrators to provide annual contracts to domestic players so that they have a fixed income.

While the elite Indian cricketers are a sorted lot, along with a handful of first-class players who have IPL contracts, an average domestic cricketer gets a match fee of Rs 1.5 lakh for a first-class game. And that is only if he finds himself in the playing XI. If he is not picked in the team, he pockets half the amount, Rs 75,000 per match. But there is no fixed or guaranteed income per year.

Singh, who last played for India in Tests and ODIs more than two years ago, has been playing in the domestic circuit regularly since. In his message to Kumble, he said, “I hate that I’ve found constant struggle around me in the financial situation of my first-class teammates… It’s shocking to say the least that the payment system hasn’t been changed since 2004… The guys can’t even plan their future because they don’t know whether they would earn Rs 1 lakh or Rs 10 lakh in [a] year and it leads to huge issues in their lives and families and [affects their] state of mind.”

Singh has requested Kumble to take up the matter with the top brass of the BCCI and involve influential retired greats such as Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. His request is quite a valid one. If a domestic player gets picked for just one match in a year, how will he survive on just the match fee of Rs 1.5 lakh for the whole year? What about those who don’t get picked at all?

No union

This isn’t the only pay dispute (if you can call it one) going on in world cricket. Australian international cricketers are currently involved in a logjam with their board over their remuneration. Some of the cricketers have also threatened pulling out of the marquee Ashes series against England later this year if the dispute isn’t solved. West Indies cricketers have also been embroiled in a long-standing dispute with their board over their pay and other matters.

However, the difference between these two cases and the one brought forward by Singh is that the latter concerns domestic cricketers, most of whom don’t have contracts with the Indian Premier League to fall back on. The protesting West Indian cricketers are doing fine for themselves in spite of not representing their country regularly because they play in multiple T20 leagues around the world, including the cash-rich IPL and Australia’s Big Bash League. The Australian cricketers have also threatened to do the same.

Another thing that the West Indies and Australia cricketers have and the Indians don’t is a players association to support them. The West Indies Players’ Association and the Australian Cricketers’ Association have represented the players in their fights against their respective boards. India, on the other hand, is the only Test-playing nation to not have a players’ association that is recognised by the BCCI.

There have been multiple attempts by Indian cricketers to form an association, the earliest one being in the ‘70s with Sunil Gavaskar, Bishen Singh Bedi and Srinivas Venkatraghavan at the forefront. However, that association hardly managed to achieve anything and became “largely inactive and virtually non-existent” over the years, reported ESPNcricinfo.

Sunil Gavaskar (left) and Kapil Dev have both been involved in failed attempts to form a cricketers' association (AFP)

In 1989, Kapil Dev and Arun Lal formed the Association of Indian Cricketers, before the BCCI ensured it was disbanded. Another attempt was made in 2002 when the Indian Cricket Players Association was formed, with Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi as president, Lal as secretary, and stalwarts such as Tendulkar, Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Kumble and Javagal Srinath being members. However, the BCCI refused to recognise the association, which also eventually fizzled out.

Threat to BCCI

So why is the BCCI so against a players’ association? “Officials see this as an irritant that threatens their monopoly over power,” wrote Amrit Mathur, a former sports administrator who has worked as the BCCI’s media manager, in a column for Hindustan Times. “Players see it as a worthless perk, a free meal coupon valid at a kebab-only restaurant given to a confirmed vegetarian. Theoretically, player associations unite players and give them an opportunity to participate in governance. Sceptics treat them as glorified trade unions where cricketers agitate for money.”

Mathur further wrote that it was not surprising that previous attempts to form a cricketers’ association had failed because top players anyway “have a hotline to senior BCCI officials and the clout to have it their way”. He added, “For Virat Kohli, or any India captain, any requirement (pay hike, square turner, rest between games, support staff appointment, new suitcase and chartered flight) is a matter of calling the right number. The system is loaded in favour of star players… The Indian team itself is the de-facto player association. It functions like a grievance redressal system for an exclusive club whose membership is restricted to top players.”

According to this report, India captain Virat Kohli has demanded the annual retainer fee for BCCI’s grade ‘A’ contracted cricketers to rise from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore. Kohli argued that cricketers in England, Australia and South Africa make anywhere between Rs 10 crore-Rs 12 crore, inclusive of retainer fee and match fee, a top Indian cricketer currently earns a maximum of Rs 5 crore. Kohli has the support of head coach Kumble, who is scheduled to meet the BCCI’s Committee of Administrators and other office bearers in Hyderabad on Saturday to discuss the contracts of India’s international players.

Virat Kohli has reportedly demanded a pay hike from the BCCI (AFP)

There are good chances Kohli’s demands will be met. The Rs 5 crore that he will pocket from the BCCI should the new contracts kick in, will be over and above the reported Rs 15 crore he got from his IPL franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore, for less than two months of his services, and the reported Rs 1.5 crore he charges the brands he endorses for one day of his time. Compare this to a domestic cricketer who gets just Rs 1.5 lakh per match only if he is picked to play. He also has no one to turn to, apart from his state association, which is affiliated with the BCCI, but gets a fixed amount from the board.

Where is the Cricket Players’ Association?

Interestingly, one of the recommendations of the Justice Lodha committee, which was appointed by the Supreme Court to look into the affairs of the BCCI following the 2013 spot-fixing scandal, was to have a players’ association. The Lodha committee took note of the BCCI’s “apprehension of unionisation”, but said it was important to give the players “a voice to raise their concerns”, while ensuring they don’t form a “trade union of any sort”, according to The Telegraph.

The Cricket Players’ Association would be managed by an elected “executive committee” comprising male and female former cricketers who have played at least one international match, male former cricketers who have played at least 10 first-class matches, female former cricketers who have played at least five first-class matches, and differently-abled former cricketers who have played either international cricket or first-class cricket. “The executive committee shall ensure that the funds provided by the BCCI are utilised exclusively for the purpose of this association and for no other purpose,” the Lodha recommendations report said.

When Kumble goes to meet the CoA and BCCI members, he could perhaps ask them why this particular recommendation of the Lodha committee has not been implemented yet. Considering Kumble was a member of the erstwhile ICPA, this is a chance for him to push for a valid Indian cricketers’ association, which would safeguard the interests of not just international cricketers, but even domestic and age-group ones.

Harbhajan Singh, a veteran of over 350 international matches, has done a noble deed by bringing up the grievances of domestic cricketers. It begs the question as to why no one else has brought this up earlier. But taking nothing away from Singh, the reason he could approach Kumble and get publicity for his request is because of his reputation. If Singh had not made his move, there’s a good chance India’s elite cricketers would have gotten richer, while the rest continue to fret over whether they would make any money in spite of playing their sport on a professional level.