While it’s exciting the Bangladesh’s national women’s league just won Asia Cup, it comes as little surprise that our women’s league is paid very little compared to the national men’s team. I did some basic digging on available data (sources below) and create a quick-n-dirty plot of monthly salary by grade (players are divided in various categories depending on performance: national men’s team has 5 grades; national women’s team has 4 grades).
Simply put, the monthly pay gap between Tamim Iqbal and Salma Khatun is BDT 3,65,000 (Taka 3 lac 65 thousand).
To make matters more transparent, I looked up match fees by country – only to find out Bangladeshi women cricketers get 1/23rd of what men earn in one day international matches — only US$100. This is the lowest pay compared to any national women’s cricket team in the world.
* ODI match fees for Pakistan and Sri Lanka women’s cricket teams are not publicly available, although salary structures are.
* Worth mentioning cross-validated data on match fee for Bangladeshi women cricketers in ODI was difficult to obtain. I resorted to BCB press release but have found conflicting numbers elsewhere.
If I had more time, I probably would have developed more complex statistical model to illustrate whether pay is a predictor of performance, or to what extent sponsorship affects BCB’s salary structure.
Photo: ACC/ESPNCricInfo
Sources:
ESPN CricInfo
Dhaka Tribune
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB)
sabhanazrashiddiya.com 