New Delhi: Things have drastically improved for womens cricket in India. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side created history as they won its maiden World Cup title. Their victory also brought a record-breaking prize purse of around Rs 39.78 crore along with an additional Rs 51 crore announced by the BCCI. But the journey to this success wasnt always smooth. In a past interview Indian cricket legend Mithali Raj opened up about how different and challenging the conditions were during her era compared to today. Mithali revealed players got Rs 1000 per match in 2005 World Cup Mithali who is the leading run-scorer in womens ODI cricket once disclosed that the Indian team received just Rs 1000 per match even after finishing as runners-up in the 2005 Womens World Cup. Womens cricket in India was run by the Womens Cricket Association of India (WCAI) from 1973 until it was merged with the BCCI in November 2006. Mithali Raj also disclosed there was no annual contract There were no annual contracts. There were no match fees. When we finished runners-up in the Womens World Cup 2005 we were given Rs 1000 per match. Just for that tournament. We didnt have any match fees otherwise Mithali had earlier revealed in an interview with Lallantop earlier this year. There was absolutely no money in the sport so where would we get match fees from? Mithali had stated. These (match fees and annual contracts) started when things came under the BCCI. First we were given per series then per game and only recently has there been pay equity with the mens team Mithali had added. BCCI introduced equal match fee for Men and Women cricketers In October 2022 then-BCCI secretary Jay Shah made a historic declaration that men and women representing India would earn the same match fees Rs 15 lakh for Tests Rs 6 lakh for ODIs and Rs 3 lakh for T20Is.