World Twenty20: Women cricketers not at par with male counterparts

Sydney - Australian women cricketers are not being paid at par with their men counterparts in the ongoing World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.

While each male cricketer gets a daily allowance of US$100, female cricketers are getting a paltry $60. It doesn’t stop here. In fact the men’s champion team will get a prize money of $1 million while the women’s team will get just $60,000, reports The Age.

The daily quoted an ICC spokeswoman as saying that the world body was aiming for “equal everything”, but the smaller budget for the women’s event resulted in the more modest allowance and economy-class travel for the female cricketers.

“We are working towards equal everything. We are aiming to have three viable formats in men’s and women’s cricket and to promote the women’s game so it receives the same exposure, the same opportunities and the same prize-money,” the spokeswoman was quoted as saying by the daily.

The World Twenty20 is a step towards making women’s cricket commercially viable, with semi-finals and final at the World Twenty20 to be televised by ESPN-Star Sports as curtain raisers.