Contracts help NZ women make strides

Even as the BCCI moves forward with its plans to set-up a contracts system for India's women cricketers, there are some lessons to be learnt from how New Zealand cricket have organised the system with their players, who are currently playing a series in India. Following the lead of the six domestic teams that offer contracts to their women players, NZC announced ranked contracts for 10 women cricketers last August.

The contracted players earn between NZD 10,000 (approx. USD 6685) and NZD 12,000 per year depending on their rank. While that isn't enough to allow players to focus entirely on cricket, it does give them a chance to spend more time practicing and recover losses they incur from unpaid leaves from their jobs to go on tour.

"The money is not just a payment to say 'well done, you've got a contract'," White Ferns High Performance Manager Helen Mahon-Stroud said, "It is to assist them and support them through their training needs. So if they require specialist coaches to improve their game, they have the remuneration to go get that training. Overall, our goal is for those players to be better players."

Almost everyone in the squad still have other jobs they depend on to earn their livelihood. Katie Perkins, for instance, has a full-time job as a police constable in Auckland and has the tough task of balancing some arduous night shifts with matches or training sessions the following morning.

"I remember one weekend when I had night shifts and I also had some cricket commitments and games during the day," Perkins said. "So I had a night shift on that Friday night, went straight to a club cricket (match) on Saturday morning, another night shift on Saturday night, and White Ferns promotional activities on Sunday during the day and then back on night shift on Sunday night. So I was a walking zombie by Monday morning."

However, getting a contract has helped Perkins balance her life a little better. Even though she says the police department in Auckland has been very accommodating, her earnings from the contract has allowed her the opportunity to come on a tour, like the current one in India, on unpaid leave.

Unlike the Australian and English boards, who have deeper pockets, the New Zealand board has had to manage their resources more judiciously, ensuring they can grow the sport across the population while also helping women's cricket in the country. "Australia and England have paved the way," White Ferns captain Suzie Bates said, "And the rest of the world is trying to catch-up. It is difficult in a place like New Zealand where we don't have the playing numbers and New Zealand Cricket is a smaller organization. When I started playing it was never even in my mind that we would be 'professional' in my era, so for it to have happened so soon and for it to have progressed so quickly, we've just got to keep working hard."

The tricky bit remains creating greater interest in a sport that remains lower down in the pecking order in New Zealand. But White Ferns vice captain Sophie Devine feels the contracts can help in that regard too. "We are real ambassadors for the game (back home) with these contracts," she said. "Spreading the word that cricket is a real career option. Specially back home in New Zealand where, apart from netball, there are no other sports (for women) that pay as well as us. It's really important to get the message out there that cricket is a career option for young girls coming through."

Devine would know a few things about sports for women back in New Zealand. She has represented the national team in both cricket and field hockey and has only over the last two years shifted her focus more towards cricket. Though she still harbours ambitions to represent the Black Sticks, as New Zealand's women's hockey team are known, at the Olympics in Rio in 2016.

From an aspiring Olympian to a past-Olympian, captain Suzie Bates represented the New Zealand women's basketball team in Beijing 2008 but shifted her focus to cricket full-time after being made captain. Both were among four women cricketers to get contracts back in 2013, the others being Sian Ruck and Sara McGlashan, and much of their job off season, is to visit schools and train young kids, acting as ambassadors for cricket across the nation. The contracts have made it easier for them to focus on the game even if Ruck and McGlashan aren't on the current tour for different reasons.

But while the contracts have been a firm first step, it hasn't quite allowed the women to really put in those extra hours they need to take their game up that extra level. "We're in that tricky phase where the money doesn't allow the girls to train much more than they did," says Bates, "because it isn't enough for some to give up their work." A fact illustrated by the absence of two members of their regular team for this tour, including the massively experienced Sara McGlashan, due to other commitments.

"But it has given us a more professional mindset of where the game is going," Bates said. "And to get more money coming in from New Zealand Cricket we know we have to perform and we have to have that professional mindset regardless of the money we're earning."

Stroud admits the challenge is now to evaluate the progress over the past year and actually improve things within the pragmatic constraints that the NZC has to work in. The MoU for the contracts is locked in for two years but before the new contracts are implemented starting August, some tweaking is on the cards. After a strong showing in India, having moved up to fifth in the championship table with two wins in the first three matches, the investment appears to be bearing fruit.