Australia’s best female cricketers Meg Lanning, Alyssa Healy and Ellyse Perry have missed out on an IPL payday in the region of US $30,000 each for a mere three matches, after Cricket Australia formally informed them that the BCCI would not reverse its decision to omit the trio from the exhibition tournament to be held next month.
Lanning, Healy and Perry remained hopeful of a compromise over the four days since the BCCI announced IPL exhibition squads devoid of Australian players on April 25, but were finally told the bad news by interim team performance chief Belinda Clark on Monday and are understood to be highly frustrated by the turn of events.
CA had been acting as a collective agent on behalf of the players and, as revealed by ESPNcricinfo, Clark had told the BCCI on April 5 that their availability would only be confirmed after talks between the CA chief executive Kevin Roberts and his BCCI opposite number Rahul Johri resolved a parallel scheduling conflict over an Australian ODI tour of India in January.
CA has denied using the players’ availability as a bargaining chip in negotiations over the men’s ODI series, but on Monday issued a public apology for how a “communication breakdown” had cost Perry, Lanning and Healy.
“We have always been supportive of the Women’s IPL and had every intention of participating,” a CA spokesperson said. “We are also very keen to ensure a strong working relationship with the BCCI.
“While we are in regular contact with the BCCI, there has clearly been a communication breakdown on this occasion and the women have been impacted as a result. We’re sorry this has happened and are determined to ensure our relationship with India remains open and collaborative to avoid future such incidents.”
Roberts and the CA chairman Earl Eddings are expected to visit India next month as part of their efforts to improve a relationship with the BCCI that has broken down to the visible cost of Perry, Lanning and Healy, as well as CA’s broadcast rights holders Fox Sports.
The pay television operator paid the majority share of a AU $1.18 billion rights deal last year, largely for exclusive coverage of men’s ODI and T20I cricket in Australia and are now facing a 2019-20 schedule devoid of the former.
More to follow…