India’s women cricketers to be paid same as men

India’s international women cricketers will be paid the same match fee as the men, its cricket board said Thursday, hailing a “new era of gender equality” in the nation’s favourite sport.

The announcement by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) follows pressure across sport globally to reduce the often vast differences in pay.

Match fees are however separate from annual pay packets, where there are enormous differences between what Indian men and their women counterparts earn.

“We are implementing pay-equity policy for our contracted @BCCIWomen cricketers,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah tweeted, calling it the “first step towards tackling discrimination”.

Despite some progress India remains a highly traditional and patriarchal society and has far fewer women in formal employment than men.

Men and women players will now get 1.5 million rupees ($18,000) for each Test, 600,000 rupees for one-day internationals and 300,000 rupees for T20 internationals.

According to media reports, it is an almost four-fold increase for women for Test matches, a six-fold rise for ODIs and three times higher for a T20.

This is almost 14 times what women get in the highest bracket.