IPL snub pinches Pak cricketers hard

Shahid Afridi, others could have doubled income in 45 days.

The inexplicable refusal of Indian Premier League (IPL) teams to recruit Pakistanis for the third edition of the cricket jamboree has taken away from those sportsmen a chance to make big money quickly. The snub triggered angry protest from the cricketers and the issue has blown it into a diplomatic row between the two neighbours.

Most of the Pakistani cricketers could have made more money during the 45-odd days of IPL-III, which kicks off in March, compared to what they earn from international cricket matches and endorsement deals in a full year.

The top four Pakistani players — Shahid Afridi, Sohail Tanvir, Imran Nazir and Misbah-ul-Haq — could have made between themselves as much as Rs 7 crore had the IPL teams bid for them. Afridi, who was bought for Rs 1.7 crore in IPL-I by Deccan Chargers, had commanded a base price of Rs 1.15 crore this year. Cricket experts said his price this time could have gone up to at least Rs 3 crore.

Tanvir, who had played a key role in Rajasthan Royals’ victory with his unorthodox bowling action, could have seen his price jump from Rs 46 lakh then to at least Rs 1.5 crore this season. His base price for IPL-III was Rs 92 lakh. In IPL-I, teams had forked out around Rs 10.5 crore for seven Pakistani players.

This is big money for Pakistani cricketers who are paid less than their Indian counterparts in match fees as well as endorsement fees. For instance, top Pakistani cricketers like Afridi, according to experts, get a yearly salary of around Rs 16 lakh from the Pakistan Cricket Board, plus Rs 1.9 lakh for a Test, Rs 1.6 lakh for a one-day match and Rs 70,000 for every T-20 game they play. In comparison, a top Indian cricketer gets Rs 60 lakh a year from the Board for Control of Cricket in India. Of course, there are various categories but even those in the lowest bucket are paid Rs 25 lakh a year. Payment for matches is on top of this.

“IPL is growing to become a big cricket event. And huge money is involved. Even a budding Pakistani player can make 40 to 50 per cent more in just 45 days of cricket compared to what he gets in the whole year,” said sports manager Indranil Blah who was earlier the vice-president of Globosport. He added that for Afridi the exclusion will hurt more because he has retired from Test cricket and now plays only the shorter versions of the game. “IPL was big for him.”

There is also a big gap between what Pakistani cricketers make from endorsements vis-à-vis Indians. So, while Mahendra Singh Dhoni will not touch, according to industry sources, any endorsement offer which is less than Rs 8 crore, Afridi, the most popular Pakistani cricketer, commands not more than Rs 2 crore.

A senior executive of a multinational company, which operates in India as well as Pakistan and hence closely looks at cricketers from both countries for endorsements, affirmed that the difference is huge. “The highest deal we have heard of in Pakistan was Rs 2.2 crore after it won the T20 World Cup, that too for just one campaign,” said he.

Meanwhile, SET Max, the official broadcaster of IPL-III, said that the absence of Pakistani cricketers will not dent its revenue in any significant way. “We have a telecast deal with Geo TV and we have not received any formal communication that it will not show the IPL-III matches. If anything comes to us formally then we will review our strategy. The television viewership market in Pakistan is very small,” said Multi Screen Media President Rohit Gupta, the company that owns SET Max.