Indian cricket board doubles salaries of players

NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket board Wednesday doubled the salaries of its contracted players while retaining former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the top pay bracket.

Players holding a Grade A contract will now get an annual retainer fee of $3.05 million instead of the previous $1.71m they were getting since November 2015.

Dhoni, who gave up the limited overs captaincy in January, held the Grade A contract with his successor Virat Kohli and a few other top Indian players for a period ending September 2017.

Cheteshwar Pujara, who scored a double century in the drawn game against Australia in Ranchi, left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja and opener Murali Vijay were the new additions to the top of the three grades.

The cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) also hiked the retainer fee for Grade B and C players while increasing the match fee across formats.

Players will now get $23,000 for a Test match, $9,000 in a one-day international and earn $4,000 for a Twenty20 game.

The decision to restructure the central contracts and match fees was taken by the BCCI in conjunction with the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).