Australia cricketers get bonus on women’s day

Melbourne, March 8 (IANS) Cricket Australia’s (CA) Board Friday voted to pay its female cricketers a $10,000 bonus each, recognising the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars winning two world championships in six months.

CA will also renew the contract of Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars’ coach Cathryn Fitzpatrick.

CA Chairman Wally Edwards said the women’s team had been outstanding in winning the ICC Women’s World T20 Championship in Sri Lanka late last year and backing up with the ICC ODI World Cup in India last month.

“Our players make many sacrifices to represent Australia as semi-professional cricketers and their performances are resulting in fans and media sitting up and taking notice of women’s cricket,” said Edwards.

“Hopefully, their consistently excellent and entertaining performances will see women’s cricket one day attracting commercial support from telecasters and sponsors that will see the game capable of supporting full-time professional female cricketers,” he added.

The bonus will be paid to all members of both squads which represented Australia in either tournament.

IANS 2013-03-08 17:18:02