ICC Chairman Jay Shah was honoured with the ‘Outstanding Achievement Award for Contributions to Indian Women’s Cricket’ on Friday at CNN-News18’s Indian of the Year Award ceremony in New Delhi. Shah also
served as the BCCI secretary until December 2024, during which he made groundbreaking decisions, including implementing pay parity between men’s and women’s cricket and launching the Women’s Premier League (WPL).
Speaking at the event, Shah dedicated his award to India’s women’s cricket and the current team that won the ICC Women’s World Cup 2025.
“Harman is here, and so are Jhulan Di and Mithali, and I would like to dedicate this award to all of you,” Shah said.
Shah reflected on his tenure as BCCI secretary and discussed the significant steps taken to improve Indian cricket, including strengthening Indian domestic cricket, cracking a grand media rights deal, and more.
“I want to speak carefully and take all of you back to the period before December 1, 2024, because on December 1, 2024, I became the President of the ICC.”
“On October 23, 2019, I took charge as the Secretary of the BCCI, and from that day until December 1, 2024, we made several important decisions and achieved many milestones.
“We strengthened the domestic cricket structure, implemented pay parity, launched the WPL, and successfully completed a ₹50,000 crore media rights deal — all without any controversy.”
The former BCCI chief highlighted the state-of-the-art facilities at the newly constructed BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, which has been helping Indian cricketers enhance their performance.
“We also built the National Cricket Academy, with over 20 lakh square feet of construction. The facility now offers pitches similar to those in Perth, Cape Town, Sydney, Melbourne, and other venues around the world. This is why performances have improved significantly. Many such key decisions were taken during that period,” Shah said.
Among all directives passed by the BCCI during his tenure, Shah stated that the decisions closest to his heart were the implementation of pay parity and the WPL launch.
“But my two favourite decisions remain the implementation of pay parity and the launch of the WPL. You have recently seen the results of these efforts,” Shah said.
“I once again want to congratulate Harman and the entire team. You won the heart of the entire nation and even challenged the men’s team, putting positive pressure on them. Many congratulations to you.
“You may remember—Mithali, you were doing commentary there as well—Cape Town 2023. And Harman completed that historic moment at the Patil Stadium,” he concluded.
