That day finally came when BCCI decided to release the ICC T20 World Cup money to the players after more than a year of delaying it.
India lost to Australia by 85 runs in the ICC T20 World Cup finals held in Australia and was given the runner-up title for which the team was given prize money of USD 500,000. The women in blue were invincible during the group stages but in the end, handed over the win to Australia.
The cricketers received their prize money just before leaving for England, where they will be competing in all three formats against England starting June 16. The money was released after the players were asked to send an invoice for the World Cup prize as well as the money for the South Africa series held in March.
“The BCCI had last month asked all the members of the Indian women’s team to send an invoice to claim their prize money for the T20 World Cup, as well as the home series against South Africa. Once the players raised the invoices; we cleared their payment within a day or two. Thus, all the dues of the women’s team have now been cleared,” A reliable source on the board told TOI.
Everyone from the T20 World Cup squad received an amount of USD 26,000 (Approx INR 19 Lakhs)
In the month of May, UK’s daily The Telegraph had published an article exposing the BCCI for not distributing the much-deserved World Cup money to the squad members. BCCI was then forced to make the payments as soon as possible.
Even though BCCI has now made the payments for the T20 World Cup prize money, there is still suspicion regarding the money received during the group stages. The Indian Women’s team should receive their share of the USD 60,000 which they were supposed to receive for winning 4 group stage matches as USD 15,000 for winning each group stage match. So now each member of the squad should receive an equal share of USD 560,000. Split between 15 members, each member should receive around $37,000. But they are only getting somewhere around USD 25,000.
This leaves almost USD 175,000 unaccounted for, despite giving clear instructions that the prize money should exempt the Goods and Services tax. The support staff who went with the team does not get a share in this prize money.
Source: TOI