The Pakistan Cricket Board in its rupees 776 crore annual budget has given the top priority to domestic cricket. Pakistan Super League comes next, ahead on the budgetary allocation for international cricket.
The PCB has earmarked 71.2% of its total annual budget for cricketing activities.
The board of governors, in a video conference, while agreed on slashing the gross budget by 10% to meet the feared shortage of revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic has 25.2% of the total provisions for domestic cricket. The amount will be spent on salaries and match fees, organising events and operations of the high performance centre.
The PCB has earmarked 19.3% for international players contracts, match fee and the homme and away series. The PSL 2021 gets a 19.7% share of the total budget, that will have a mere 5.5% or Pakistani rupee 39 crore women’s cricket and a 1.5% (rupees 10 crore) for medical and sports sciences.
In board under the chairmanship of Ehsan Mani decided to reduce the budget by 10% as part of the PCB’s austerity, robust financial management and belt-tightening exercise. The board was informed that the COVID-19 pandemic will result in a shortfall in the PCB revenues from international events and other commercial programmes.
The PCB will also spend rupees 122 crore capital expenditure, while is approximately rupees 80 crore less than the last year.
The PCB under the new monthly retainership programme will offer contracts to 192 leading domestic players, 32 from each of the six cricket associations. The board had also given nod to implement a slab system in contracts as against a flat payment for rupees 50,000. The new slabs are fixed at rupees 150,000 pm, rupees 85,000 pm, rupees 75,000 pm and rupees 40,000 pm.