The ECB has announced that women's regional cricket in England and Wales will get a £3.5 million funding boost through the end of 2024. This will help to improve the average domestic salary to £25,000 and bring the total number of female professional players to close to 100.
The increase in funding, which follows the BCCI's recent declaration that India's national teams will receive pay equity in match payments, is another proof of the growing popularity of the women's game.
Clare Connor, interim CEO of the ECB, stated that everyone in the sport of cricket "should be tremendously proud of the game-changing progress of professional women's domestic cricket since the implementation of the Transform Women's and Girls' Cricket Action Plan began in 2020."
Clare added, "The huge funding boost we are announcing today will not only raise the bar for domestic players in England and Wales, providing the women's game more depth, but more importantly, we are paving the way for a more fair future for women and girls in our sport. More than ever, young girls have a clearer path to playing professional cricket and the conviction that they, too, may achieve such aspirations."
From November 1, there will be seven professional players funded by the ECB each region, and by February 1, 2023, there will be ten professional players per region.
There will be 80 ECB-funded professional women's domestic cricket players by the start of the 2023 season, double the initial number of 40 who were contracted in 2020, in addition to the players who are centrally contracted to England Women.
The Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and Charlotte Edwards Cup teams' salary pot will increase to £250,000 on February 1; as a result, the average wage for a woman playing regional cricket will increase to £25,000.
The ECB noted that there has also been an increase in staffing pay and capacity, with a focus on the availability of science and medicine in each region.
"As of February there will be nearly 100 professional female cricketers in England and Wales," Connor said. "There were fewer than 20 before we launched the new regional structure in 2020.
"We owe a debt of gratitude to everyone's labour of love, especially the players, support staff, and administrators who supported the idea and spearheaded this shift, as well as to the PCA for the significant part they've played in fostering this development through their ongoing cooperation.
In addition to The Hundred's dramatic effects, "cricket is flourishing as a result of the advantages of professionalisation and collaborative ways of working."
