ICC sets up £11m fund to try and save Test cricket

The International Cricket Council is to set up a $15million (about £11.4million) fund to try to save Test cricket, with the aim of ensuring that the game’s best players are not lured away by Twenty20 franchise tournaments.
The initiative, which was suggested by Cricket Australia and has been backed by administrators in England and India, will increase the minimum match payment for Test players and also help to cover the cost of sending teams on overseas tours. At present touring sides have to pay the costs, including player expenses as well as salaries and match fees.
England, Australia and India are by far the wealthiest of the Test-playing countries and have been in discussions over recent months about how they can help the other nations, who are increasingly at risk of players choosing lucrative T20 contracts over international cricket. The fund should ensure that all players receive a match fee of almost $15,000 if they play a Test.
One of the turning points that made the ECB, Cricket Australia and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) start their discussions was when South Africa were forced to name a weak Test squad to tour New Zealand this year because Cricket South Africa had determined that no players who were contracted in their domestic SA20 league could be selected for the Tests.
The Cricket Australia chairman, Mike Baird, has been instrumental in pushing forward the initiative and believes that the onus is on the wealthier nations to protect cricket, or run the risk of fewer Test series — or certainly fewer competitive ones.
“It’s fantastic to see some momentum behind the Test match fund,” Baird told The Sydney Morning Herald. “We need to take away the barriers and encourage Test cricket to be the best of the best. To retain that history and that legacy, which goes alongside the newer forms of white-ball cricket.”
Jay Shah, who is the chairman of the BCCI, Indian cricket’s governing body, will be formally elected as president of the ICC next week and is understood to support the fund.
England, India and Australia will not benefit from the fund because it is intended to support the other nine Test nations.
Another idea that has been put forward to help protect Test cricket is to introduce windows in the annual calendar that are dedicated only to international cricket and are free from T20 leagues. However, so far this has not received universal support and could not be introduced for at least another six years, given that the international schedule for that period has already been agreed.