Pat Cummins in line to earn $1m a week from shortened 2020 IPL season
Superstar cricketers in a mini IPL season, condensed into three or four weeks later in the year, may retain their full mega-salaries, potentially handing Pat Cummins $3m for under a month’s work.
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Pat Cummins could take cricket into a new stratosphere by earning a million dollars a week.
The International Cricket Council will meet on Thursday night and may officially postpone October’s World Cup in Australia and open the window up for a jacked up Indian Premier League to step into its place.
Indian powerbrokers are planning to stage a mini IPL condensed into three or four weeks later in the year, possibly in the UAE, but the halved season doesn’t mean Australian superstars like Cummins will necessarily have their mega salaries pruned.
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Sports marketing expert, and former cricket player manager, Neil Maxwell believes Cummins could still pocket the entirety of his record $3.17 million IPL salary for what might essentially be three weeks’ work.
“If the event went ahead and if Cricket Australia supported it (and allowed players to attend), which I assume they would, I wouldn’t be surprised if the BCCI paid their full salaries,” Maxwell told The Daily Telegraph.
“It may have some sort of (pay scale) relevance to the number of matches played, but knowing India, you wouldn’t be surprised if they just gave you the whole lot.
“They’re very keen to win the hearts and minds of players and they know they’re asking players to go into an environment (with COVID-19) that’s not 100 per cent certain and could have a bit of an impact on players.”
There are several variables up in the air in relation to a rescheduled IPL for October-November and it’s understood not all franchises could afford to pay their stars the full freight of original salaries for 2020.
It’s also possible organisers could apply a pay scale and players would receive a percentage of their original contract, depending on how many matches are played.
But at a time when pay cuts and penny pinching are the order of the day, there is no doubt India will err on the side of being generous as they look to emerge from the COVID-19 disaster by strengthening their iron-clad grip on international cricket.
Cricket Australia would have to make an extraordinary decision to allow its biggest name stars to head off abroad and collect pay cheques in India at a time when the domestic season will have started at home.
Cummins is desperate to play the IPL if the World Cup is postponed and the world’s best fast bowler declared on Wednesday that in that event, CA should release its stars for the good of cricket overall.
“Yeah I mean it’s a once off. It’s unprecedented. We’ll wait and see. Obviously nothing is for certain yet. It’s a great tournament,” said Cummins.
“I think the IPL would be a great fit. It brings the best players in the world together, it’s a big tournament, I think it would be great for cricket to see.
“You have millions and millions of people watching that tournament around the world each year and I’m sure this year will be potentially even more after a long break off cricket.
There’s a lot of reasons why I’d want it to go ahead, but the main one is it’s a great tournament.
“I don’t think anybody has gone over to IPL and haven’t got something out of it.
“It’s not necessarily a new problem (for Australian players to miss start of domestic season).
We’ve had Champions League in that time of year for probably half a dozen years that clashed with domestic schedule here. Whatever the solution is we’ll sort it out.”
Cummins said he has no idea how his salary might be adjusted for a season cut from seven weeks to inside a month.
He said having the original tournament postponed in April was a blow, but denied he was too rocked by having $3.17 million snatched away by the coronavirus.
“It’s one of those things isn’t it. Until you play the tournament and finish the tournament. It’s just somewhere you hope to go and play but you haven’t played yet,” he said.
“ ... It (the money) would be nice but it hasn’t changed my world.”