BCCI's 'Test Cricket Incentive Scheme' will help red-ball specialists like Cheteshwar Pujara, Srikar Bharat: Jay Shah

BCCI secretary Jay Shah said the board’s decision to introduce the ‘ Test Cricket Incentive Scheme’ for the India senior men’s team will help red-ball specialists such as Cheteshwar Pujara and Srikar Bharat and will further encourage youngsters to excel in the five-day format going forward.

The scheme was announced during the post-match presentation ceremony following India’s thumping innings and 64-run victory over England in Dharamsala that helped them win the five-Test series 4-1. The scheme is a retrospective one, aimed at benefiting players who represented India in Test cricket starting with the 2022-23 season.

The funds that will be distributed in the new scheme will be a bonus for the players on top of the existing match fee of Rs 15 lakh per Test that remains unchanged, with the BCCI eyeing a total outflow of Rs 45 crore in the scheme.

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“The move will benefit players like Cheteshwar Pujara, Umesh Yadav and KS Bharat who have been dedicated Test players and played in the last season. We are looking at an outflow of around Rs 45 crore in this scheme. It will start from the 2022-23 season and then continue forward,” BCCI secretary Shah told reporters in Dharamsala after the fifth Test against England, according to News18 CricketNext.

Shah also clarified that the scheme will not have any effect on the payment structure in the annual player retainership for the 2023-24 season, in which players in the top bracket of Grade A+ earn Rs 7 crore followed by Grade A Rs 5 crore, Grade B Rs 3 crore and Grade C Rs 1 crore.

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“There is no change in that. It will continue to stay the way it was last year,” Shah added.

The announcement comes at a time when the BCCI’s actively pushing the senior cricketers towards playing red-ball cricket, including domestic competitions such as the Ranji Trophy.

The board had recently dropped middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer and wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan from the central contracts list for not taking the Indian team management’s advice of playing Ranji Trophy in order to regain their form and/or prove their fitness. Since getting a rap on his knuckles, Iyer has joined the Mumbai team and is currently playing the final against Vidarbha.

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India head coach Rahul Dravid lauded the BCCI’s latest incentive to not only reward India’s Test specialists but also popularise the red-ball format among budding cricketers. The former India captain, however, cautioned money alone shouldn’t be the incentive for youngsters to play a “tough format”.

“I really hope money is not going to be the incentive to play Test cricket. It’s just nice the hard work and how tough Test cricket is being recognised. So I wouldn’t see it as an incentive to make people play Test cricket, I hope not. I hope it never really comes to that. But I think it is just probably a recognition that this is a tough format and it is a hard format. And it takes a special person to do what Ashwin has done, to play 100 Test matches. you go through a lot, and rightly so.

“You guys celebrated Ashwin today, and Jonny Bairstow, you’ve celebrated Stokes a few games ago. Because I think all of you recognise how challenging the format is and what it takes to be able to have consistency and to be able to survive the test of time in this format. We don’t celebrate 100 T20s in the same way, do we?," Dravid said during the post-match press conference on Saturday.