 Hello and welcome to newsclick.in, we're in the studio in New Delhi, I'm joined today on my right by Gautam Navlakha, journalist, activist, commentator and on my left, Zai, who's a policy researcher. And on Skype from Bangalore, Sharda Ogra, journalist with ESPN Crick Info, we're talking in the context of the BCCI's central contracts list which came out a couple of days ago and it's been the topic of much conversation in at least cricketing circles in India for the past couple of days. Yesterday in an interview, Smriti Mandana, who is the ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year, came out and said that the issue of pay parity between men and women in cricket is not an issue. That's essentially what we're talking about. We're going to go across to Sharda first for essentially a background on what happens, how much the women get paid, how much the men get paid and why this is an issue that essentially we felt the need to burning me to discuss today. So much so that we grabbed her state as soon as she got off her flight. Sharda, can you set it up for us please? Okay, I'll just go with it. The entire issue sort of got kicked in once again into public notice because of the statements that were made before the Indian women left for the World T20. Smriti Mandana, Arman Preet Kaur said, you know, no, no, we can't earn as much as the men are. What happens at this point is that the Indian women have only just been given contract, say for the last six years, it came into place, I think, 2013, if I'm not wrong, 2013, 2015, could have been, it was possibly 2015. I'm sorry, it came into play in 2015 in the middle of this whole IPL scandal because suddenly they discovered it really bad that women are not on contract at all. And the problem that exists at this point is that, you know, neither the men cricketers nor the women realize the power of collective bargaining. The Australian women cricketers are paid more than any other women cricketers in the world. They earn about 165,000 Australian dollars approximately. The Indian women earn at the moment, the top flight women, they're talking about, say, not even 24, you know, it's a much smaller number that earn around, say, 75, 76 thousand US dollars in going by the top women's contract is 50 lakhs. And then the men's lowest contract is, I think, it's one crore. Yeah. And the problem is that it's not these, this level where it where it matters, it matters where you're looking at the first class in first class cricket, where everybody, you know, the numbers are larger. They don't have first class contracts, even for the men, they aren't at the state level, never mind the women on, I think a couple of thousand rupees, 2500, 5000 rupees, you know, that kind of sum. And in a cricket board that is so profitable and so huge, you should be able to do everything to get more and more women to play, to make the game more viable for people to come in and to want to play. Australia, which is like a path breaker in the sense of women's cricket, they want to make sure that their women, if they win the World T20 will get exactly the same amount of prize money that the men will get who in the World T20. So that they'll put in the cricket board, we put in about $600,000 if the women win it. You know, so the Australians have made, the Australian men and women belong to a cricketers association that pushes for this kind of thing. And in India, even the men's cricketers association that has been formed is kind of fighting for attention at this point in time. They're saying nobody's calling us, nobody's having meetings. So a lot of the time in cricket, the money is sort of handout. It's like largest and the women are sort of facing the end of it. But I think at this point, the top players are so grateful that they're getting any kind of, you know, decent money that they say, listen, let's not get into this. And, you know, we have to make money. You don't have to make money. The board has to find a way to make money for your game. So is it in that sense, maybe it's a little bit unfair to also ask current players who are absolutely involved in and earning whatever living they're earning through the establishment. Perhaps it's unfair to sort of focus these questions to them so much. And that's why we are perhaps able to have a conversation about these issues in a more balanced manner than Smithy or any of these current cricketers are able to, from a policy point of views, I how why should the argument that has been put forward is that women's cricket doesn't bring in the revenue. And therefore, it's okay for us to make less money than the men look at how big how many people watch how many sponsorships, blah, blah, blah. Why is that from a policy point of view, not perhaps the best argument to make? Yeah, one of the questions I would ask is what can the women players even do to increase revenue? Is there a special way of playing that brings you know, more people to the games? There's nothing they can realistically do to increase the revenue, except for, you know, playing well, which they're doing already. So it is the job of the BCCI to bring in the money. And also, the BCCI has to have the incentive to market these games to get the women to play more games in a year, for example, or to bring in the sponsors to sell the tickets. So if the women aren't even paid at a level that the men are being paid at, the board itself has no incentive to market these games. So I don't think the players have that incentive. You know, when we talk about parity between women and men cricketers, when we talk about parity, we are talking about look at the existing situation. Of course, it's a, it's a welcome thing that in October 2015, for whatever reason, BCCI felt compelled to start offering central contracts to women. But having started that, it's important now to take a look at the level of difference between, say, A plus amongst men who get seven crores, and for grade A for women players who get 50 lakhs. I mean, it's a difference which is 14 times. Now, is that realistic? Is that fair? Nobody is starting to say, well, women cricketers should also get seven crores, not right away. But definitely there is an argument that can be made and is reasonable to suggest that it, they cannot be such a huge gap between men and female. That's one part of it. The second is how many women finally end up getting the contracts in contrast to men? That's another question I have in mind. How many do they get it? I think in the first round, the 11 women got contracts. Is that right, Sharda? Yeah, yeah, it's not a big number. I have just gone up to, you know, it was literally the first round, it would have been, you know, just about the main team, give or take a few players here and there. And now the numbers gone up, but not by much. Yeah, it's around 19, I think, if I'm not wrong. 19. So it's a very small number that one is talking about. So it may, it's not just a question of the quantum that each person gets, you know, the contract, the question is also how many, how many women are given these central contract? The second question I have in mind, and I think it's related to central contract is a very important thing. And it's a welcome change. At least we have started. But what about domestic tournament? What about this role of the state associations in promoting women's cricket and widening the network, you know, so that you get more women interested in the game, more women play, so more people come out to watch. And there is the local domestic tournament. I mean, in England, Sharda, you can help us in England and Australia and New Zealand have a very robust domestic tournament system. Is it not? Do we have something anything comparable? There is there is something that has been set up, which is sort of literally the basic starting point framework for women's cricket, say a couple of years ago, it's not even older than that. But in Australia, it's the women's big bash league that has created this massive interest in women's cricket with kids and the you know, the crowds are good, which is where they've managed to get television right from it. Now the whole thing is, oh, we can't have a women's IPL, because it's not easy to do, you know, because do we have that many players? So all the all the questioning is on the ability of the players rather than the inventiveness of the organization that owns, owns cricket as such, you know, which is this, it is almost like a classic Indian sport scenario, you'll see it everywhere across all sport. There aren't enough tournaments for, but for, you know, aspiring young athletes to play. And similarly with women's cricket, the men's gig is superbly managed. Men's cricket has 2000 matches a year 2000 from senior to junior level. It's a mental figure and it's organized like a military operation is done beautifully. But the women's matches will literally be a handful of like 20 or something. I mean, I could be getting the number wrong. But it's all that because that is that is literally thinking out of the box and doing a little bit more work and changing the way you look at women's cricket to start with, you know, women's cricket was seen as is this abandoned until they had never forced to take BCC was forced to take it, take game under its wing, the women's game. This is a question to everyone. And it's from the point of view of let's say I'm the BCCI. I'm organizing or my job is to look at how to make this sport which conversations are happening like has cricket reached a saturation point in terms of its audience and the people that are playing, etc. etc. right. Perhaps it might be pertinent to look at 50% of human population as a possible both player base as well as an audience to consume it. Perhaps it's also possible to say that okay, it's cheaper to organize matches for women because you're not paying them enough because as much it's you don't require billion dollar sponsorships. You can sell cheaper tickets thereby bringing more people into the stadium. Isn't it in the benefit or like for administrators of the sport doesn't it work well to encourage the women's side of the game? Assuming that in the BCCI at the moment they are administrators there that want to work for the women's game. At the moment people in the BCCI just fighting for territory and kind of they finally got it back after the court, hide it and all that. So the women's game is literally last on their mind. But like you're saying it is it is a very it is a you know, you raise an interesting argument about you see we don't have to spend that much money. The BCCI has more money than it can actually spend or throw away. It is just enormously successful on the back of the men's game. And so doing this for women's cricket will actually meaning to go out and make sure it's literally like women's cricket and you know the new teams from the Northeast are sort of looked at in the same way that I really have to have them so they're there. You know, so you have to work in a way that you need to then train coaches. You need to make sure that you go out and that there are grounds that the girls can play in and push the women's game. We had asked Rahul Dravid about you know what was his wish list on the ESPN website and one of the first thing he said was more more more involvement in the grassroots for the women's game. So that is what has to be done. Then you've got to go out and proselytize the game amongst girls in this country. You know, you have to do it in an active way. You have to do it with a way of build a proper structure of tournaments, which at the moment somebody said it's railways just comes and beats everybody then you know railways and Air India are the two big teams, but all the state associations have to create their own teams and their own district competitions and have coaches go down there. It's literally like you're literally trying to make cricket grow all over again in in in some parts of even in in this particular demographic and so on. You know, we have different models that we can choose from. Now in England, if I understand the women's domestic cricket scene is non professional, it's amateur. Okay. Yet they've been able to maintain quite a robust system. Perhaps not as robust as Australia or New Zealand because they have a much better base scale and things like that, but nevertheless it has. Now we can choose BCCI has two models to choose from either it believes in revenue generated model, where again, it does pay in the long run to invest in something to allow it to grow and develop. And you have to invest and BCCI has if it doesn't want to look at the revenue model, then it has other model to walk fall back on where it can use its coffers to create a very sound domestic women's cricket through tournaments by through outreach in schools, etc, etc, etc. Exactly the manner in which they have tried to promote cricket for for men. Okay. At various levels. The same thing can be duplicated. The point I'm raising is in countries because there's too much of focus on revenue that it must generate revenue. People must come. It must be marketed. I mean, the game didn't begin as a marketing proposition. The game was played because it was something very enjoyable. People like playing it. It had positive fallouts, etc. Now, maybe we have to go back to that in order to to probably introduce changes, the best changes possible under the circumstance. I mean, that's how often I can think of. No, I'm saying what I'm saying is amazing. We are constantly thinking that the game has to produce money. No, money is a part of the game. The game doesn't exist to make money. Exactly. My money just exist to make it just to keep the game to grow the game. So thank you. Thank you for that. And so I don't think they're mutually exclusive also necessarily because even for young girls in schools to want to play cricket, it helps to see those star players doing really well in their lives and for the game to be so big that people are watching it. So you have to do both these things simultaneously, I suppose. Well, that's what they have in England. They have it's not as if they don't have any professionals, but it comes at a much later stage rather than so it allows also people to play the game for the sheer pleasure of playing the game. Somewhere, market and revenue have taken over our decisions, you know, so that's that's rather sad. There's a global apparel major that sponsors the Indian cricket team and they wanted to put someone on the cover because they had a new shirt out, right? So it was a fight on multiple levels to get. I think Smithy, if I'm not wrong, was the one who finally ended up on the cover, but I could be wrong. But it was a fight to have a female face there just showing off a shirt that you're paying money for. You mean, you cancelled the money because you're paying the money, they're paying the money. But you still want to perform anywhere, but when you're getting the cover of the magazine, then you don't want to do it. I don't know. You know, having this picture as opposed to just that picture doesn't make it any better or worse. But anyway, that was a tangent. In a wider sense, it's the thing that happens across sport and we had the FIFA Women's World Cup happen last year, 2019. It was the most widely watched women's World Cup ever. And this was a major part of the conversation. Superstars like Megan Rapinoe and the Americans are taking the lead in their fighting, in fact, against their against US soccer. It's now, what do they say? Class action lawsuit. Because they're representing all women that play the sport. So it's assumed that level of a suit. And they're going against it saying that why should US soccer, it's a non-profit whose job it is to run soccer in the country. It's autonomous from the government, yes. But it's not a for profit company. They are paying the salaries of the men's national team and the women's national team. What is the logic of like, isn't the is an equal pay for equal work, the simple logic on which this should be based? One of the things they're also saying is that it's actually impossible to separate out the revenue generated by the women players and the men players in soccer. So you can't actually make the argument that the women generate less revenue than the men for the other. And women's soccer, US women's soccer team is extremely good. Very, very talented. And their sheer pleasure of watching them play attracts a lot of eyeballs and a lot of crowd. So there is, but that's thanks to the fact that they've encouraged that sports to grow and develop and expand. You don't do it. You can't expect people to come and watch. In fact, the Norwegian player Hildeberg who was voted the best player in the world didn't actually turn up to the world cup because of this reason. Until we get that parity, I will not play. And subsequently Sharda is waving. She needs to go, I think. Is that it Sharda? Yeah, I have to get it. Yeah, it's about say five minutes. Five minutes. Okay. We'll also try and wrap up in five minutes only then. In the case of cricket, it's really odd. Bakhi toh aap kaitein ki India is a one sport nation. Sirf cricket kheltein. Sirf cricket jaanthein. Thi ke Olympic disciplines agar ab dekhayin. Athletics dekhlein. Badminton dekhlein. Kushti dekhlein. Boxing dekhlein. Kaaise medal jaane hain aamare olympic? Olympic year hai na? Yes. What are the chances? Women are probably going to do it. So why is it that in a sport that has this massive more money than they can spend? On the one hand and on the other like the national team is being treated at par with ridiculous sport like football. How come like the BCCA has all this cashed? So why is one of its national teams being treated at par with like a non-entity like football or athletics or one of these sports? I mean and now you know we'll have to go into about men's sports and women's sports and it's like a wider sociological argument. You know at the point is more like you know as in it's like two complex to be talked about in a taxi. But the thing is that at this point in time now it's literally the women's game is ready for takeoff. If you want to energize and re-energize your sport and all the discussions you're having about what kind of your audience is, maybe the women's sport is the way to do it. And we saw what happened after the 2017 World Cup. Everybody woke up to the idea that of these fantastic you know women players that we have. And I mean the stories you heard about the women's team in the past are they got the men's shirts for the sponsors all those kind of things now that has changed. So let's hope that they are able to then make the base work better than right at the top because in all our sport the elite athletes are now looked after but it's the people at the grass roots are still basically scrambling for you know some kind of respect, some kind of opportunity so things like that. So maybe this is the time for them to say okay let's forget how we were and let's be something better. You know as Miguel Rapino says be better. Fair enough. We let you go here Sharda. Thanks for taking the time and thank you so much. Thank you and I will track you down soon. Thank you and I'll come to you guys for closing comments. Most of your research is in tech that accurate. So how does it work in that industry? It's maybe not a singular industry but yeah. I would just say that what this highlights is that pay is a negotiated settlement whether formally or informally and one of the things that Smriti Mandana said is that if the crowd comes in everything will fall in place. I'm not sure that's necessarily true even if the crowd comes in you will still have to collectively bargain and I think we have to now look at reform of the Indian Cricketers Association to make sure that the players have the ability to collectively bargain with the board and as it works in any industry. Collective bargaining and also the silence of the superstars. It applies to this scenario as well. Okay. You don't have to talk about politics. You don't have to give your opinion on the CAA or the NRC. Fellow cricketers. But these are cricketing issues. Exactly. These are your co-athletes, your compatriots, all of that. Why is why the silence from the superstars again? I don't know why the silence. I mean this is a question that should be posed to them. Why you silence where your own fellow cricketers who happen to be women who are getting of just now I mean the last three four years been provided central contracts and all. Why is it that they still lag behind? Why is it that there is no domestic robust domestic tournament or reach out where you can you know you catch hold of young from the school onwards as you're trying to do for the juniors in the cricket etc etc. So yes absolutely. But the point is if you don't have a proper players association which is willing to even act as a union exactly as the counterparts in Australia or elsewhere. Look at the contrast. Australia the men cricketers stood by the fellow colleagues. Right? That is the model we should be following. We're trying to follow Australian cricket methods which we replicate the worst part but we leave out the best parts of Australian practices. I mean this is strange. So the one level is that the players must be organized. They must be able to bargain hard not just for themselves but for others. And it's the senior's responsibility to do it. I think BCCI which is sitting I mean the largest coffer that it has and it's supposed to be sharing 26% of its gross revenue with the players which it doesn't do because a large part of that gross revenue which it generates from you know IPL and other lucrative contracts they don't share with the players but they're sitting on a huge pile of money. Surely if they have the interest of game at heart and they have a long term planning they would think that 50% of the population which is women is what we should be targeting to try and get them also engage involved in this the only game that this country seems to be playing any degree of you know well they do fairly well let's put it that way. Now if this is the only game we have surely it makes sense for me that BCCI should be thinking and looking at women's cricket and its development and its widening far more seriously than it has ever bothered in the past. So I think there are multiple things that need to be do and at different levels these have to be we have to keep on raising these questions and keep on reminding the people that these are issues if you believe in the game you believe that the sport should grow cricket should grow then this is the way in which you have to expand. Fair enough I think that takes us to the end pretty much of this conversation and also all of time and all of that three points just to quickly conclude one for the BCCI women's cricket is not a different sport played on a different planet for the players unionize and for you guys keep watching NewsClick