Steve Waugh, the former Australian Captain believes that the T20 leagues all across the globe are loyal to nothing than money and due to this, striking a good balance between 3 formats of cricket is impossible.
However, the captain feels that England, Australia and India are very close to getting this balance right. He adds that England is very well coming up, India is having the potential and Australia is also really close to striking the balance.
Waugh is quite worried about the effect of T20 on the game and he says that owing to the incentives offered, the loyalty towards this national duty is declined. Steve said that “Somebody like Brendon McCullum retired from Test cricket even though I feel he still had three-four years in him. He is just working for superannuation right now, for his family, which is alright. Overall I feel there is no loyalty to the team, there is loyalty to money now. I don’t blame the players but it’s tough on the fans”
He is of the opinion that for 1 team staying at top of the rankings in all 3 formats (Test, ODI, T20) is not at all possible or realistic. There is no one in the world who is no.1 in all the 3 game formats, says Waugh while he interacted with Indian media at Berlin’s Laureus World Sports Awards.
Steve’s sentiments were inspired by Ian Botham, the former England Captain’s thoughts of keeping T20 at the bottom of the shelf. Ian states “Test cricket is number one because it ebbs and flows beautifully but there is shelf life for every format. And I feel Twenty20 should be at the bottom of the shelf. People are saying it was a great World Twenty20 final last month. I say it was a great last four balls, the rest of the final was a drag. I think it was a pretty poor final,”