Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar recently slammed the Indian Cricketers’ Association (ICA) president Ashok Malhotra for his comments on salary deduction of contracted players in the absence of cricketing action due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier, Malhotra claimed that with BCCI looking at bearing massive losses due to the cancellation of Indian Premier League (IPL), the salaries of all international as well as domestic players should be compromised with.
“Like with any sport, if you don’t play, you don’t get paid and that’s what will happen. What was amusing though was to read that the president of the Indian Cricketers’ Association has said there should be pay cuts for the India internationals and the first-class players too,” Malhotra stated earlier.
The thirteenth season of the IPL was scheduled to commence from March 29. Instead, the 2020 edition of the tournament was postponed until April 15 due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
A rigid call is expected to be made on cancellation or rescheduling of the tournament, looking at the crisis in the country.
Further, Gavaskar accused Malhotra of trying to ‘curry favour’ with the apex cricketing board in India.
“One can understand him trying to curry favour with the BCCI but with whose authority is he talking about the cuts is the question. The current India internationals and the first-class players are not members of the players’ body so he can’t be speaking on their behalf. It’s easy to talk about pay cuts if it doesn’t hurt your own pocket.” Gavaskar registered his scathing remarks, according to Mid-day.
However, BCCI’s treasurer Arun Dhumal clarified by stating that the board is not yet pondering about salary cuts.
“No, we have not spoken about this (pay cut). Whatever the steps after this setback, it will be taken judiciously and keeping the interest of all people in mind. Any step taken needs to be thought out, and right now, we haven’t even thought about it. Obviously, this is a big setback, but we will go about this in a way that nobody gets affected. These things can be discussed once things settle down,” Dhumal commented earlier.
