PCB Announces Massive Increase in Domestic Tournament Participation Fees

The Pakistan Cricket Board has gone through a major overhaul for the upcoming domestic season. These changes have been mainly made to the departmental cricket, as earlier, the department teams such as SNGPL or WAPDA paid approximately 5 million PKR to participate in the tournaments. Now the same fees has been increased to 15 million PKR, almost three times of the previous fees. 

The board says this will be used for live streaming games, ground expenses, umpire fees, and operational costs. Along with that, departments will also have to provide players with 12 month contracts. The salaries will now be credited directly to the player's bank accounts, and they will be paid on time. Such solutions come after the board faced scrutiny on players not being paid in time. 

The minimum salaries for Grade I teams has been fixed at 1.5 million PKR as a lump sum contract. This gets lower for the Grade II teams. Along with that, the departments do not decide whether their players will be participating in the foreign leagues or not. This privilege has now been handed over to the PCB, which will decide whether the players will get NOC or not. 

Our Take

The PCB surely has made some positive changes, as it focuses more on young talent and player fitness. Questions still remain on the increases it has made on the participation of departmental teams in the domestic tournaments. It remains to be seen whether this move will come in benefit of the Pakistan Cricket Board, or will the department teams come against the same to ensure that things get back to what they were earlier.