Pay Parity, is a step in the right direction as CWI and the West Indies Players Association sign a historic MOU. In a ground-breaking move, the Cricket West Indies and the West Indies Player’s Association have signed a historic MOU a step towards ensuring equal pay for men and women players at the domestic and the International level.
They are set to join Cricket South Africa (CSA), New Zealand (NZC), and India (BCCI) who announced the decision earlier. The MOU includes achieving pay parity in international and regional match fees, international captain’s allowances, international team prize money, and regional individual prize money for all West Indies cricketers by 1 October 2027. It also includes performance grading criteria as per established standards.
“We are proud to embark on this journey towards gender pay equity. The significant increases in our female players demonstrate our dedication to rewarding excellence and promoting fairness in our cricketing community. The increases in prize money, greater rewards for our best-performing players, and higher match fees for players in the starting XIs are all strategic moves to place a greater emphasis on winning.” Cricket West Indies Chief Executive Officer Johnny Grave is elated as West Indies eventually embarks on a journey towards ensuring gender payment equality with an intent to encourage the top performers.
In earlier days, women professional athletes were paid way less than their male counterparts, and as a result of a significant difference in their respective paychecks, female athletes were forced to look out for other career opportunities alongside pursuing their sport. However, things are now slightly getting better as the respective boards are taking proactive steps to reduce the gender pay gap both at the domestic as well as International levels.
“Achieving gender parity and equity has always been a strategic objective of our players’ union, and we’ve certainly done so with our female members. Without a doubt, this is a truly historic and exciting time for our membership as the MOU addresses most levels of our pay scale. As we operate within a very fluid cricketing landscape, we are duty bound to conscientiously reward our regional and international players within the constraints of CWI’s budget and agree on policies that will produce and promote world-class performances.” The President and CEO of the West Indies Player’s Association Wavell Hinds speaks about fulfilling the objective of the Player’s Association and the significance of the ground-breaking move by the board.
The senior women’s team led by skipper Hayley Matthews powered West Indies to a memorable victory with the bat scoring 132 runs at a strike rate of over 200 to seal a world-record run chase (213 runs) on 2nd October 2023 in the 2nd T20I at the North Sydney Oval against Australia. However, they went on to lose both the T20I as well as the ODI series.
(Quotes sourced from Cricket West Indies Press Release).