Bangalore, May 24 (IANS): Recognising their yeoman contribution to the game in their heydays, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Wednesday honoured 15 ex-cricketers and rewarded them with one-time payment between Rs.1.5 crore to Rs.25 lakh.
As part of its largesse from the surplus revenue generated by money-making Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 and Champions League T20 (CLT) tournaments, the BCCI has earmarked a whopping Rs. 70 crore for distributing among 69 international and first-class cricketers who retired before 2004.
The 15, who were honoured before the Eliminator tie between two-time champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here, comprised Venkatesh Prasad, Roger Binny, Yashpal Sharma, EAS Prasanna, Rajesh Chauhan, Arun Lal, S.Vishwanath, B.S.Sandhu, U.N. Kulkarni, Kawaljit Singh, Sudhakar Rao, M.V. Sridhar, Daljit Singh, Sanjeev Sharma and P. Mhambrey.
Yesteryear players who played more than 100 Test matches got Rs.1.5 crore, followed by Rs.1 crore for those with 75-99 Tests, Rs.75 lakh for 50-74 Tests Rs.60 lakh for 25-49 Tests, Rs.50 lakh for 10-24 Tests and Rs.35 lakh for 1-9 Tests before 1970.
Cricketers who played one and more First Class matches were given Rs.30 lakh while those who played 75-99 First Class matches received Rs.25 lakh.