The Cricket West Indies president Johnny Grave feels that the ICC’s multi-million fund to revive the Test cricket will have no impact on the format’s health.
The new ICC chairman Jay Shah wishes to impose the sustenance of Test cricket, for which a 15 million fund has been proposed by the approval of the three big boards CA, BCCI, and ECB.
The fund aims to reinforce Test cricket in nations outside the Big Three to bring a balance against the lopsided state.
The initiative was driven by Cricket Australia chairman Mark Baird and got support from the England Cricket Board (ECB) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
There is also a provision in the planned central fund that rewards players with a 10,000-US dollar match fee per appearance. Although Grave appreciated the gesture by the three boards, but feels that the money will not make any difference to test Cricket.
“Cricket as a game needs to think much more as a league and needs to understand everyone’s business models a bit better. I think there are some positive noises from the Big 3, I think the Test fund was a good initiative. I don’t know if US $15 million a year will make any difference to anything,” said Grave.
Grave further revealed that the match fee sum offered according to the central fund is only as much as Cricket West Indies is offering currently.
“I think the idea of paying a Test fee of US $10,000 is not even window dressing. We pay our players US $10,000. So, I sort of smiled when I saw that come out in the press. I thought, ‘how is it going to change cricket and how’s that going to be saviour of Test cricket when our players are already getting paid that?’ It’s not going to make any difference to us,” he added.
Johnny Grave will step down from his role as CWI CEO in October 2024, after seven years in charge.
Grave laments the recurring two-match test series, with only three big boards playing dedicated test series exceeding three matches.
“What will make a difference, in my opinion, to improve West Indies Test cricket is by playing more three-match series rather than two-match series, by having dedicated Test windows where you’re not competing against franchise opportunities, or actually supporting our ‘A’ team programs. We’ve really struggled to get ‘A’ team tours,” Grave said.
Johnny Grave admitted that the test fund is not even close to an answer to save the format, he certainly welcomes the Big Three’s thinking to revive the test cricket.
“I welcome the debate and I’m not saying that I or we at West Indies cricket have all the answers, but we welcome the debate, we welcome the slight change in mindset which is the Big 3 can’t just play against themselves, they’ve got to have a stronger opposition,” he concluded.
West Indies has marked their sole three test match series against England in the current WTC cycle where the former suffered a clean sweep defeat in the hands of English men.
