Karachi: Senior batsman Mohammad Hafeez has turned out to be the highest earning Pakistani cricketer in 2015-16 after he took home approximately 39 million rupees (2.49 crores INR) as earnings from the Pakistan Cricket Board.
By contrast, India’s Test captain Virat Kohli earns around 308 crores (INR) annually from fees and endorsements.
According to documents sent by the PCB to the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Co-ordination for the fiscal year 2015-16, it paid some 46 cricketers around 550 million rupees as their fees and bonuses for all formats of the game.
Not surprisingly the players representing Pakistan in all three formats have earned the highest money in the last fiscal year. Sarfaraz Ahmed earned around 33 million rupees.
In contrast flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi, who now represents Pakistan in only T20 cricket, earned approximately 18 million rupees. The documents confirm that the PCB is also heavily subsidising domestic cricket.
The list of the top earning players includes national One-Day captain Azhar Ali (30 million rupees), Younis Khan (24 million), Misbah-ul Haq (24 million), Ahmed Shehzad (28 million), Wahab Riaz (29 million), Shoaib Malik (26 million), Asad Shafiq (20 million), Rahat Ali (17 million), Mohammad Irfan (15 million), Umar Akmal (18 million), Junaid Khan (13 million), Zulfiqar Babar (11 million), Anwar Ali (12 million), Muhamamd Rizwan (14 million).
Some of these players have faced problems with the federal taxation and revenue officials over not disclosing their full earnings or non-payment of wealth taxes.
The PCB has been increasing the players fees and monthly central contract retainers since the last two years.
PTI