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Although Pat Cummins acknowledges he occasionally
worries about the future of the five-day game, he doesn’t think the popularity
of Test cricket is “as dramatic as it sometimes gets spoken about”.
This, despite Usman Khawaja drawing attention to the situation’s lack of pay
parity in the cricket world.
“My hopes are that it’s even stronger than it is
now, in ten years’ time or 20 years’ time,” Cummins told reporters ahead
of Australia’s third Test against Pakistan in Sydney. “I think in some
regards leading to this Test summer, some of the question marks were against
Pakistan and West Indies. We’ve had two fantastic Test matches against
Pakistan, really well supported, big crowds.
“So I don’t think it’s in as dramatic a decline
as sometimes it gets spoken about. But I think there is an issue just with the
amount of other cricket out there, obviously competition for talent is higher
than it’s ever been.”
When South Africa revealed a patchwork lineup for
their two-Test series in New Zealand in early February, conversations about the
future of Test cricket returned late last week. Neil Brand, who was uncapped at
the time, was elected captain despite the fact that numerous first-choice
players were playing in the SA20 league. The fifteen-year-old Duanne Olivier is
the most seasoned player on the 14-man roster, which consists of seven capped
and seven uncapped players.
Cummins hoped that South Africa’s decision to travel
to New Zealand with a subpar team was an isolated incident.
“I grew up absolutely loving Test cricket,”
he said. “I think it does go through phases. I know the South African team
aren’t sending their strongest side [to New Zealand]. I’m hoping it’s a
phase.”
Khawaja said that world cricket needs to wake up to
the crisis-in-the-making and address it.
“In my personal opinion, unfortunately the issue
is that some of the other countries aren’t getting paid as well for playing
international cricket,” he said. “That’s just the raw facts. I know
this because I’ve talked to players from other nations, I’ve asked them what
their average salary is, what their match contracts are for their
countries.”
“It would be just great to see all the boards and
where their finances are at. Are they struggling, is the money going into the
right places, is it going back to the players. We’ve got to figure out a way
for them [other countries] to be incentivised to play international and
particularly Test cricket. That requires transparency from all cricket boards
around the world to try to figure out how to pay the players the best way they
can.
“Once you can get on top of that, if you see a
massive shortfall for say the Windies – they’re struggling, they’re not
bringing in enough money – then world cricket needs to gather round to help.
But until you get that clarity and 100% know the money isn’t being
misallocated, it is hard to know.”