Australia, India and England must be prepared to share more of their wealth with other nations to keep the best cricketers playing Test matches, Cricket Australia chair Mike Baird has declared.
Responding to the assertion of former captain Steve Waugh that administrators “don’t care” about Test cricket’s parlous state after South Africa named a second-tier squad to tour New Zealand, Baird admitted that action was needed.
Dark clouds over the SCG on Thursday.Credit: Getty Images
He called on other member nations of the International Cricket Council to ensure that solutions to issues around player retention for Test matches outside the “big three” nations be placed at the top of the agenda at the next meeting of the global body’s board.
Most significantly, Baird argued that CA, the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the England and Wales Cricket Board had to be prepared to dip into their own financial resources to help the likes of South Africa, New Zealand, the West Indies and Sri Lanka, now that it has become clear that bilateral touring arrangements are not sufficient alone.
“If we’re in a position that national teams aren’t being prioritised, then we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Baird said.
“Ultimately, that might mean costs and consequences for the leading countries. There is undoubtedly an economic element.
“But there’s also a commonsense element in terms of the way we schedule and the way we collectively as members prioritise. So there is strong resolve, but we need to move, I think, at a much quicker pace.
“Work is under way, but our agenda needs to shift to bring this to the top. So whatever issues we are wrestling with, and there are multiple, whatever time we thought we had, we no longer have the luxury of sitting, considering and waiting.”
Baird and CA signed off last year on an ICC plan that handed nearly 40 per cent of a $5 billion pool of global event revenue to the BCCI, already cricket’s financial behemoth, led by its powerful secretary Jay Shah. CA and the ECB accepted smaller portions but neither rely on that pool of money anywhere near as much as other nations.
“The ICC percentage is greater for some than for others,” Baird, a former NSW premier, said. “As an overall for us it is a smaller percentage, an important percentage but smaller than some of the smaller member countries.
“We need to support, retain and grow Test cricket, and we’re going to have to think through our priorities and part of that is how we distribute funding. I don’t think we can wait, so we have to look at how that funding is allocated, is it going to the right things, and yes one of the solutions which has been put forward is increasing Test match payments to make them more competitive. They’re all the things we need to bring forward.
“But in simple terms, do we need to prioritise retaining Test cricket? Absolutely. Will we do everything possible to ensure that is done, absolutely. And certainly, we will have to talk to states and various stakeholders on this, but my strong sense is Australia is prepared to pay a price or a cost, which is additional contributions towards making that happen.”
Asked about Waugh’s plea for cricket’s leaders to step in because if they don’t “then Test cricket doesn’t become Test cricket because you’re not testing yourself against the best players”, Baird said the legendary former Australian skipper was right to speak up.
Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Shane Warne during their days as Test teammates.Credit: David Davies
“As a hero of the game, when Steve Waugh talks, people listen, as they rightly should. I have deep passion for this game as an administrator, and there’s also responsibility. So I think he’s right to call that out, not just for us, but to all administrators,” Baird said.
“The outcome has to be that national teams are the No.1 priority at all times. Sometimes there might be reasons and obstacles that make that difficult, and we need to know what they are in detail and consider the solutions and what we can do to help.
“This is not about picking who’s done what right or wrong, it is collective ownership. We’ve got a challenge, we all need to come together and solve it and we need to do it quickly. There are moments that we are starting to see that tell us it is getting away.”
