Pakistan cricket team is one of the most underpaid cricket teams around the world. While the money involved in Pakistan cricket’s infrastructure is nowhere near the level of top cricketing nations such as Australia, England, South Africa, and India, they have still done remarkably well to compete with them over the years.
In comparison, the Indian team players are some of the highest-paid cricketers in the world. The likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah have a retainer worth approximately 100 times more than that of the highest-paid cricketers in Pakistan.
Apart from the retainers, the match fee for each of the three formats is much higher for Indian cricketers as compared to their Pakistani counterparts.
Let’s have a look at the comparison of the Central Contracts of Pakistani and Indian cricketers:
| Category | Pakistan | India |
| A+ | – | $914,417 |
| A | $7,696 | $653,155 |
| B | $5,247 | $391,893 |
| C | $3,848 | $130,631 |
The value has been converted to USD for easier understanding. These figures have been taken directly from the websites of PCB and BCCI.
Apart from the monthly retainers, the players are also paid match fees depending on the format. Note that the match fee is the same for all cricketers irrespective of their central contract categories.
Let’s compare the match fee:
| Format | Pakistan | India |
| Test | $4,267 | $19,594 |
| ODI | $2,624 | $7,837 |
| T20I | $1,893 | $3,918
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Let’s have a look at the centrally contracted players of both Pakistan and India:
Pakistan
| Category | Player |
| A | Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan, Hasan Ali |
| B | Azhar Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Fawad Alam, Shadab Khan, Yasir Shah |
| C | Abid Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Nawaz, Nauman Ali, Sarfaraz Ahmed |
| Emerging | Imran Butt, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir |
As per PCB’s 2021-22 central contract list
India
| Category | Player |
| A+ | Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah |
| A | Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Mohammad Shami |
| B | Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Siraj |
| C | Hardik Pandya, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha, Mayank Agarwal, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Suryakumar Yadav |
As per the latest BCCI contract list
