West Indies losing an unfair game

To misquote Bill Woodfull: there are two teams out there, one is playing cricket for good money and the other is not. ESPNcricinfo can reveal the vast pay imbalance between the Australian and West Indies teams taking part in the New Year's Test at the SCG, a divide emblematic of the way the Caribbean side has been emasculated by reduced ICC funding, competing regional demands, poor incentives for players and the lure of Twenty20.

In a comparison between this summer's three Test-match combatants, the West Indies players come out a long way behind their Australian counterparts. They are even comfortably shaded by those of New Zealand, a cricket economy of comparable size, with similar issues about how T20 tournaments have afforded opportunities for far greater earnings away from international competition.

Australia's cricketers speak often of their love for the baggy green, and how Test cricket is always their No. 1 priority. However this idealism is backed up by the hard truth that it is still more lucrative to be a top-tier Australian Test cricketer than anything else. As the former captain Michael Clarke once said: "Governing bodies must prioritise player performance and payment in Test cricket."