Support Staff of Indian Cricket Team, including batting coach Sanjay Bangar, fielding coach R Shridhar, team manager and physio have turned down an offer of 25% hike in their salaries offered by BCCI. According to an insider, the support staff was promised a hike of 100% by the previous heads of BCCI.
It is learnt that during the England series, BCCI Support staff had met the previous BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke and BCCI President Anurag Thakur with their expectations and both of them had assured them to look into the matter. However, Supreme Court’s decision to remove top BCCI officials from their posts kept the matter hanging for quite some time before the new BCCI CEO Rahul Johri came up with a new proposal. However, the new proposal, which offers 25% hike did not meet the expectations of support staff and they turned the offer down.
Adding further, an insider source in BCCI said that the support coaches including Sanjay Bangar and R Shridhar have joined before 3 years and they are getting the same salary as they were getting at the time of joining. Accordingly, the physio, who joined much later then the coaches is getting a similar pay. This adds to the discrimination among the support staff. This issue was conveyed to Indian Captain Virat Kohli and Coach Anil Kumble and both of them felt that the support staff needs a good hike. However, no action has been taken yet.
Anil Kumble was appointed as India’s head coach last year and he is paid INR 6.5 Crores annually. The difference between pay scale of head coach and other coaches is way too much and that needs to be looked upon.