MCC World Committee meeting
Shakibs calls to minimise wage gap at international game
He thinks underpaid players would be lure to spot-fixing
Sports Reporter
Bangladesh Test and T20 captain Shakib Al Hasan went to Australia on January 7 in an invitation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) to attend its annual meeting as the first Bangladesh cricketer.
The two-day-long meeting held in Sydney on Tuesday and Wednesday, whereby Bangladesh ace all-rounder urged through global crickets governing bodies to move swiftly to minimize the wage gap in the international game or face an adverse situation in the longer version cricket.
The MCC world cricket committee used the contrasting examples of the Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan along with England wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow to highlight the vast discrepancies in players wages around the world.
It also discussed the fact that the underpaid players will be more susceptible to the lure of corrupt approaches from the would-be spot-fixers.
Besides Shakib, Australian former captain Ricky Ponting, New Zealand former captain Brendon McCullum and Sri Lanka former captain Kumar Sangakkara were in the committee.
Shakib told the committee that numerous younger Bangladesh players were no long viewing Test cricket as their goal due to the hefty financial security afforded them by Twenty20 cricket. And so, the inclination of the players is gradually increasing to play the franchisee-based T20 league in place of Test cricket for the national team.
Wed love to see the ICC get more involved in making sure the money goes where it should go - to players, said Ricky Ponting.
Its also about understanding that domestic T20 tournaments are giving players almost an easy out to not represent their country and be remunerated in a better way to play those domestic tournaments, he also said.
The IPL is a big, powerful beast that has probably been the contributing factor to other T20 tournaments around the world. You cant blame players for playing in tournaments like that, some of the countries were talking about and the dollars guys are on to go and play in the IPL versus play the whole year for their countries is chalk and cheese, he added.
Thats where its important to ensure some of these payments even up somewhere. You dont see English or Australian players not representing their countries to play the IPL, and thats because theyre remunerated well.
So its about making sure we have the best players playing Test cricket for the majority of the year and also getting them on long-term national contracts as well so [theres not] the temptation to go and play to have some security for the back part of their lives. Making sure the contracts are closer to the Australian or English player and so lessening the opportunity for those guys to leave and not want to represent their country.
Shakib spoke about coming from Bangladesh and some of the issues and dramas theyve 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 its not getting through to the players the way it probably should.
When asked to comment over Shakibs statement in MCCs annual meeting, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury said that its Shakibs personal opinion.
Shakib went to attend the MCC meeting, where he gave his personal opinion. He doesnt represent the board there. So, its better not to make further comment over his opinion, said Nizamuddin Chowdhury.
Later Chowdhury said that ICC doesnt give any discrete fund for the cricketers. But if any play takes part in the ICC event or won ICC event, in that case, they give a financial reward to them.
The board could add to that some more during the distribution among the player or players.
