Ponting and Gilchrist power past $2 million

Australian cricket can celebrate a couple of $2 million men according to Business Review Weekly's annual sporting rich-list. The captain Ricky Ponting may have missed matches because of injury and family illness in 2004, but it didn't limit his earning as he pulled in an estimated $2.24m in contracts, match payments and sponsorship.

Adam Gilchrist, the vice-captain, was second with $2m while Shane Warne ($1.45m), Matthew Hayden ($1.11m) and Glenn McGrath ($1.11m) also reached seven figures. Brett Lee has played only five days of Test cricket this year, but his marketing power pushed him to a reported $1.3m, making him the game's highest paid 12th man.

The release of the list is poorly timed for the players as they begin a pay battle with Cricket Australia over the distribution of the board's income. CA, who has paid them 25% of revenue since the first memorandum of understanding in 1997, want to reduce national contracts from 25 to 20 and convince the players to accept a standard annual fee so more money can be spent on the grassroots.

Tim May, the Australian Cricketers Association chief executive, has presented the players' view to CA and the issue needs to be settled by June. Current national contracts range from $140,000 to $500,000 and do not include match payments. Cricketers are well down the pay-list of Australian sports stars with Greg Norman ($18m), Harry Kewell ($15m) and Lleyton Hewitt ($13.7m) filling the top three places.