While the Board of Control for Cricket in India is working immensely on producing the biggest blockbuster cricket tournament to be held in just more than a week, domestic umpires and other match officials are still anticipating their compensation for officiating matches that began from January.
As per a report from The New Indian Express, more than 400 umpires, match officials, players and video analysts are still expecting their payments for the domestic tournaments they featured in, since the beginning of this year. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the tournaments were cut short, and only tournaments such as Syed Mushtaq Ali and Vijay Hazare were held since January. Apart from them, Ranji players who solely rely on the tournament are eagerly waiting to hear from the governing body regarding their compensations.
As the preparations for the upcoming Indian Premier League are on a roll, BCCI has failed to provide them with their deserved remuneration. The delay is believed to be due to the lack of a General Manager for cricket operations, after Syed Saba Karim quit from his position the last year. The other General Manager, KVP Rao was asked to step down.
Though the lack of key officials in administration might be the reason, the people dependent on them are not being served justice. BCCI had directed the match officials to submit their bills before three days after the completion of the tournament. Upon this, an umpire who officiated in those matches told TNIE, “We usually get the payments within 15 days of completing the assignment.” He added “But two months have passed since the Mushtaq Ali tournament finished and we haven’t received any money yet.”
There are certain officials who have a permanent job as a backup, unlike more than half of whom are wholly dependent on the BCCI’s compensation package. There are even cases of officials not being paid since the last March due to the outbreak that stopped the cricketing operations for a while. No communications have been made from either the cricketers or the governing board.