Wage discrepancy a threat to International cricket, Shakib says at MCC Meeting

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 global T20 leagues around the world means 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 Sangakkara, 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 exists between players of different nations by using Shakib and England's Jonny Bairstow as example. They emphasized 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 ESPNCricinfo as saying.

The Australian focused on the point that ICC needs to be making sure that the best players are playing Test cricket for their countries. He suggested that Australian and English players are renumerated well and said that it is about making sure that 'the contracts are closer to the Australian or English player and so lessening the opportunity for guys to leave and not want to represent their country'.