Kiwi cricketers will pay for failure, says association chief

AUCKLAND - In what is seen as a fallout of their disastrous India tour, New Zealand cricketers have been warned by the New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association (NZCPA) chief to either start performing or be prepared for significant cuts in their pay packets.

New Zealand lost the Test series 0-1 and the five match one-day series 0-5 during their stay in India. Earlier, against Bangladesh, New Zealand suffered a 0-4 whitewash in the ODI series.

Heath Mills, general manager of NZCPA, said that as professionals the cricketers are to be held accountable if they do not perform to a desired level.

“If they do not perform during the year they will slide down the rankings and get paid less money. It is as simple as that and it has happened over the last few years under our system,” Mills was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Herald Tuesday.

“To suggest they do not get a pay cut shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the professional-sport contracting environment. It is a volatile environment and these guys will be feeling it on a whole host of fronts,” Mills said.

Mills spoke to the players after their return from India and said they need to raise their game and the stakeholders expect better performances than what they managed during the forgettable India and Bangladesh tour.

“What they all say to me is we have let the country down,” Mills said.

“That is what they carry every day and they need to be accountable for that and need to rectify it.”

“Rest assured, however badly I or other stakeholders may be feeling, for the players it is 20 times worse. There is no need to remind them, they know they have got a lot of work to do,” Mills said.

The top 20 players receive a basic salary before match payments. It ranges from the No.1 ranked player getting $177,000 down to the bottom three players receiving $72,000. The numbers drop $6,000 with each ranking spot.