Lillee: 'Game degenerating into money-driven event'

Dennis Lillee has accused the International Cricket Council (ICC) of placing television-generated revenue ahead of the interests of the game. Writing a newspaper column in The Australian, Lillee pointed out the futility of having Bangladesh play Tests and one-day internationals against Australia. "Playing against Bangladesh - which has suffered 18 defeats, 13 by an innings, from 19 Tests - is nothing more than a golden opportunity to get some easy wickets, easy runs and easy money," he wrote. Bangladesh have arrived in Australia for a one-month tour which will involve two Tests and three ODIs.

Lillee, the former Australian fast bowler who headed the Test wicket-taking list for some years, argued that such mismatches devalued records set by players and teams against high-quality opposition. "I'm not against progress, but involving struggling countries in quality events such as the World Cup and Tests simply makes a mockery of records," said Lillee. "Nobody worked harder than Courtney Walsh for his world-record 519 wickets, but he is going to be absolutely swamped because of what's up for grabs these days."

Lillee suggested a two-tier system to set right this situation. "A promotion and relegation system along those lines would keep all Test-playing aspirants honest and ensure Test statistics remained credible." He suggested that wickets taken and runs scored in the lower tier should be counted among first-class, rather than Test, statistics.

He also became the latest in the line of prominent personalities to hit out at the ICC's efforts to maximise profits from the game, when he said: "It became obvious to me, after watching the World Cup earlier this year and the indifferent performances from some teams, that the game is degenerating into a money-driven event because of television. Is the ICC more concerned about keeping Test cricket elite, or developing the game purely to maximise TV revenue without the slightest concern about compromising the structure and history of the game?"