TEST CRICKET WILL BE UNDER THREAT, SHAKIB SAYS AT MCC MEETING

Sakib, the first player from Bangladesh to sit on the group and who was attending his first meeting, addressed the World Cricket committee by giving his view on a range of issues.

Bangladesh’s ace-all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has told the MCC committee that young players in Bangladesh are not seeing the longer version of the game as their top goal because of the money involved in T20 cricket.

The meeting was held at Australia’s Sydney on January 9 and 10. Shakib communicated to the MCC members that ICC needed to take control of where money is going. The money that is currently available to players when they feature in ecumenical T20 leagues around the world designates that there are players who are more inclined to feature in the money-spinning leagues than represent their country in international cricket.

Shakib told the committee, which consists of the likes of Ricky Ponting, Brendon McCullum and Kumar Sangarkara, that numerous younger Bangladesh players were no longer viewing Test cricket as their goal due to the greater financial security afforded to them by T20 cricket.

The committee in turn highlighted the wage gap that subsists between players of different nations by utilizing Shakib and England’s Jonny Bairstow as example. They accentuated the point that players are likely to fall prey to corrupt approaches due to this wage discrepancy.

"Shakib spoke about coming from Bangladesh and some of the issues and dramas they've had over the years, but he also spoke about the ICC needing to take control of where the money goes because he knows a lot of money is going to the right place but it's not getting through to the players the way it probably should,” former Australia captain and MCC member Ricky Ponting was quoted by ESPN Cricinfo as saying.

The Australian fixated on the point that ICC needs to be ascertaining that the best players are playing Test cricket for their countries. He suggested that Australian and English players are remunerated well and verbalized that it is about ascertaining that ‘the contracts are more proximate to the Australian or English player and so abating the opportunity for guys to leave and not optate to represent their country’.

The next meeting of the MCC World Cricket committee will take place at Lord’s on August 6 and 7.