Former India batsman Sunil Gavaskar on Saturday said that the gap between the IPL players and the domestic players has to be narrowed down to uplift the Indian first-class cricket.
"There is a big disparity between the IPL players who play 14 days of cricket and domestic players, who play 80 days of cricket. Hopefully, that will be narrowed down as much as possible and that will make the Indian first-class cricket feel better," Gavaskar told reporters here.
"There is an agreement between the BCCI and the players about the certain percentage of the board's revenue," he added.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a T20 format tournament orgsed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and is very popular among the cricketing fans around the globe. Cricketer playing in the tournament gets very high pay as they get auctioned.
On the other hand, domestic tournaments like Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, and Ir Trophy, etc., are less popular among the fans and hence they get less pay and are less popular. These players get paid a fixed amount as allotted by the board.
Gavaskar further emphasised on giving the raise to the Ranji players as they are less paid. With Sourav Ganguly being the president of the board, Gavaskar believes he will look into the matter.
"From the last few years that has not really increased. Test players' remuneration has increased but the Ranaji Trophy players' remuneration has not increased. Therefore, I'm hoping that this year with Sourav Ganguly being the new president, he will look into it," Gavaskar said.
When asked about his take on four-day Test cricket, Gavaskar replied: "Basically what I think does not matter. It is what the current players think that matters. They are the ones who are going to play and they should be consulted."
When asked about the ongoing protests in the country by the people including students over different issues, he said: "My take is that whatever the crisis is, the country will always overcome it. Every country sees ups and downs. Every person's career has ups and downs. I think this is where the country will show its resilience. Like the way it has done in the past."
( With inputs from ANI )
