‘Increase pension for retired First Class cricketers’

By Vijay Mohan Raj Hyderabad: I was pleasantly surprised to see a video that has been circulating where in the CEO of Pakistan Cricket Board is viewed announcing an increase in pension for all First Class former cricketers. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) also has such a scheme and has implemented […]

By Vijay Mohan Raj

Hyderabad: I was pleasantly surprised to see a video that has been circulating where in the CEO of Pakistan Cricket Board is viewed announcing an increase in pension for all First Class former cricketers.

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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) also has such a scheme and has implemented it at different rates for those former cricketers who retired before 2004.

However, although it is one of the wealthiest sports bodies in the world and continues to add to its coffers huge sums every year specially because of the Indian Premier League, it has not taken any measures to increase the pension for the retired cricketers.

After the Supreme Court ordered the implementation of the Lodha Commission recommendations, it led to the formation of the Indian Cricketers Association (ICA) and it was believed that this would bring about a renaissance towards the welfare of the players. This besides that the President of the BCCI is a former international captain of the Indian team, Saurav Ganguly.

There were many representations and requests made by the players to increase the pension and also bring about more schemes towards the retired players. However, there has been no response from the BCCI in this regard.

There was one fact brought out beautifully by Rameez Raja that touched my emotional chord the most is that he mentioned that the retired cricketers had laid the foundation of what the game is today and that they and their families have the right to be rewarded for making the game so popular in the current format and bringing in so much prosperity.

As I can remember that this was also the philosophy when the pension, one time settlement and benevolent schemes were formulated by the BCCI.

It now needs a look in once more and should be scaled up to benefit the players based on the cost of living that exists today.

Former Mumbai and Hyderabad Ranji player

 

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