Five of Australia’s all-conquering team set for a showdown against hosts India in the women’s cricket World Cup semi-final on Thursday have surged through the threshold of $1m annual earnings, as the growing financial opportunities in the global game approach and even exceed the value of Cricket Australia contracts.
That group might soon expand too, given an Indian Women’s Premier League “mega auction” is scheduled for November. The Australians – who have won three of the past four world T20 titles and are defending 50-over champions – are set to attract significant interest from the five franchises, each of which have approximately $2.6m to spend for the month-long tournament.
Australian Cricketers’ Association chief executive Paul Marsh said he expected women’s salaries to continue to grow. “It’s healthy, it can offer more and more players those sorts of opportunities, because that means we’ve got a better chance of securing the best athletes in the country.”
While the earnings of individual athletes remain private, Ellyse Perry’s long-term endorsements with brands such as Adidas, Commonwealth Bank, Fox Sports and Weet-Bix have made her Australia’s highest earner for much of her 18-year career. Those sponsorships and the money paid under her Cricket Australia contract are now being complemented by significant franchise earnings.
Perry collected around $300,000 for her eight matches with Royal Challengers Bengaluru this year according to public auction results, and another $130,000 for her stint in the Hundred in the UK. Ash Gardner was the second-highest paid player in the 2025 WPL behind only Indian star Smriti Mandhana, and earned around $550,000 for her nine matches with Gujarat Giants. Annabel Sutherland accrued close to $350,000 with the Delhi Capitals, and was another – like Perry and Gardner – on the highest earnings tier in the Hundred.
Captain Alyssa Healy is also likely to be at or close to the million-dollar mark annually, as is Beth Mooney, who earned almost $350,000 in the WPL alone. Emerging players will soon enter this upper echelon too, including Phoebe Litchfield and Georgia Voll – whose 99 earlier this year tied the WPL’s highest score.
When the latest Cricket Australia pay deal was struck with the players in 2023, it was expected by 2027 the women’s team’s top-earner – then reported to be Meg Lanning – would earn $800,000, while the next half dozen highest earners would be on around $500,000. Playing income for the leading men’s player, Pat Cummins is approximately $3m, on top of his earnings from franchise cricket including around $3.7m from Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The BBL privatisation process is likely to trigger a renegotiation of that agreement, and Marsh will continue to “push everyone forward” towards gender equity. However, a priority will also be managing the physical demands of an increasingly crowded schedule. “Whilst there are not as many domestic T20 leagues in women’s cricket as there are as in men’s, the reality of it is, the players can only play so much,” he said.
Cameron Richardson, who has managed Australian leg-spinner Alana King for a decade, said the landscape has changed “inexorably” in recent years. King was picked up in last year’s WPL auction by the UP Warriorz but only played a single match, and she will enter next month’s auction as a free agent following an outstanding World Cup performance. She has taken the third-most wickets in the competition, and her 7-18 against South Africa were the best figures in tournament history.
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Richardson has been working with UK cricket management firm TGI Sport to help connect King with the best opportunities in the WPL during what he said can become a “random” auction process. “Let’s be honest, the Australian cricketers are the best performers on the most consistent team in world cricket, so you would like to think that in this auction process they will continue to be the case, but there’s no guarantee of that,” he said.
Although franchise opportunities are increasingly remunerative, Richardson said King’s priority is still the Australian team. “We treat the WPL as a bonus,” he said. “If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen, because her priority – absolutely 100% – is to her country.”
