For reasons that are not immediately obvious the salaries of England cricketers are kept under wraps. I am not sure why this is; it is quite common in the sporting world for salaries to be common knowledge. Sportsmen and -women do keep information about their sponsorship deals to themselves but that may well be at the request of the sponsor. Some information has leaked out and a central contract plus selection in most matches looks to be worth about £400,000 ($800,000) a year. This is a lot of money by most people’s standards but does not even count as beer money to Premier League footballers, tennis or golf players or F1 drivers. Personally I do not think cricketers are overpaid and lets face it, if the money was not paid to them it would go into the pockets of much less worthy individuals: cricket administrators, management and coaching staff – not one of which hits a ball or takes a catch.
There is however, one thing which I think should be considered and that is the length of a central contract. In my opinion a year central contract is far too long. I think it breeds complacency and makes team selection when a player is not performing difficult. For example, Andrew Strauss was picked for the tour of New Zealand and played in all three matches despite not deserving being considered for the tour. I think this is a direct result of him being on a central contract – not picking someone who is centrally contracted appears like an admission of failure for the selectors and a waste of money; so they pick him. I would like to see four month central contracts. It would mean there was no comfort zone for contracted players and give opportunities to players just outside the central few.
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