The legendary West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle believes that India, England, and Australia dominating Test cricket is not a good sign for smaller teams. He feels that players from the smaller teams need to get paid well and should play more red-ball cricket to develop their skills.
England and Australia kicked off the ICC World Test Championship 2023-2025 cycle with a five-match series while India will be traveling to West Indies for the multi-format series next month. India, England, and Australia have played a combined 2489 Tests so far and currently are ranked in the top three ICC Test teams rankings.
Gayle, 43, said that bigger teams are getting paid more and playing more Test cricket which is leaving the smaller teams at a disadvantage.
"Over the years, cricket has changed quite a bit. It is a big business now. A lot of money is being thrown around not just in T20 leagues but in Test cricket as well. The bigger teams getting paid more than the smaller teams, leaving them at a disadvantage," Gayle said to PTI.
Gayle also suggested a change in the structure of Test cricket so that smaller teams will be benefited. He added that all teams should be playing the same amount of cricket and need to get paid equally.
"It needs to be structured so that everyone can benefit. The disadvantaged and lower-ranked teams need to play more games to develop their skills.
Infrastructure needs to be created for them and those players need to be paid well just like the big teams because everyone is playing the same amount of cricket," Gayle said during the Indian Veteran Premier League launch.
"If (the boards) don't allow them to play those tournaments, then pay them properly, so that you can make international cricket better rather than have two or three teams pretty much dominating Test and ODI cricket. It doesn't make sense at all. It would kill the game."
