Media slam 'overpaid' Aussies

Australia cricket team were slammed by media and termed as 'overpaid prima donna' cricketers by the Australian media following their 20-run defeat to Bangladesh in the first Test at Dhaka.

While Bangladesh were praised for their impressive victory, media focused on the financial disparity between the two sides.

The Australian's headline read '$1.36m a year to lose to cricket's paupers' and the report detailed the gap between the two teams in financial terms.

The Aussie cricketers get paid about 26,000 Australian dollars per week and each member on average earns 1.36 million dollars a year.

By contrast, a Bangladesh cricketer earns 500 dollars a week and on average 26,136 dollars per year in salaries.

The Australian highlighted that the Aussie cricketers will each earn more than their victors in the Dhaka Test.

Steve Smith and David Warner will each earn $2m from their newly signed contracts with Cricket Australia.

Compared to that, Bangladesh's Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim and Tamim Iqbal receive an annual salary of Tk 2.4 million, about 37,240 dollars.

"What happened in Dhaka was on one hand wonderful for world cricket and on the other embarrassing for a pack of overpaid prima donnas," the Melbourne Herald-Sun said. "Australia, if you're going to go strike over their pay packets, you want to make sure you back it up in the field of play. Losing to Bangladesh is hardly doing that."

The Australian even asked "Did our national team expend too much energy on the Australian Cricket Association picket line and not enough in the nets?"

Further down under, the New Zealand Herald heaped praise on Shakib and wrote: "Shakib proved why he was the world's No.1-ranked allrounder across all three formats, taking five-wicket hauls in both digs after top-scoring with 84 in the first innings."

A Times of India's headline, meanwhile, asked whether Bangladesh are the new Sri Lanka, comparing the Tigers' recent upturn to Sri Lanka's surge from whipping boys to world champions in the 1990s. "There's been a shift in power balance in subcontinental cricket in recent times," the article began, and goes on to add: "It's their recent performances in Test cricket at home that has earned them the respect that the nation has been so desperately craving."

Meanwhile an article from The Guardian suggested that Bangladesh's improvement has been rapid and they 'earned this triumph.'

It said that rolling four year rating cycle cannot adequately measure rapid development like Bangladesh's and reminded that 'it is a false equivalency to conclude that Steve Smith's touring party are inherently more capable because they are banking big salaries.'