Monthly stipends of domestic cricketers raised as PCB unveils budget.

Byline: Mohammad Yaqoob

LAHORE -- The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday announced a Rs7.76 billion operating expenditure budget for 2020-21 while allocating 71.2 per cent of it for cricket-related activities.

In other important decisions, it also made a 46 per cent increase in the monthly stipends of 192 cricketers representing six associations on the domestic circuit, besides separating a department to deal with all the affairs of the Pakistan Super League (PSL).

These announcements were made during the 58th meeting of the PCB Board of Governors (BoG) held through a video-link due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

'The BoG approved a Rs7.76 billion operating expenditure budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year, which is a 10 per cent reduction from the 2019-20 budget as part of PCB's austerity, robust financial management and belt-tightening exercise,' read a PCB press release issued after the BoG meeting.

'Without compromising and reducing any activities from the year 2019-20, the PCB has allocated 71.2 per cent of the overall budget for cricket-related activities [for 2020-21]. This is to ensure that despite tough financial situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cricket remains unaffected and the PCB continues to invest in the future,' it further said.

PSL-dedicated department formed

The PCB said that though it is planning to complete all the six association teams by mid-August for domestic competitions, it added that the final decision to start the season will be taken after confirming Covid-19 is on the decline across the country.

'The allocated 71.2 per cent cricket budget includes 25.2 per cent for domestic cricket [events and players/match officials/player support personnel contracts and High Performance Centre costs], 19.3 per cent for international cricket [home/away series and player contracts], 5.5 per cent for women's cricket [home/away cricket and player contracts], 19.7 per cent for HBL PSL 2021 and 1.5 per cent for Medical and Sport Sciences,' the PCB release detailed.

According to the new monthly retainer structure, the PCB will again offer 192 leading domestic players [32 from each of the six cricket associations] performance-based contracts, but instead of paying a flat monthly retainer of Rs50,000 to all players, in this season slab-wise payments will be made, said the press release.

It added that all 192 players will be divided into five categories. The top category is called as 'A'-plus and 10 players among the total...