India and South Africa played out the shortest-ever Test cricket when the former emerged victorious within two days at Cape Town. The match lasted just 107 overs, forcing the ICC to rate the pitch as “unsatisfactory”. Clive Lloyd, however, didn’t find anything wrong with the wicket. “I don’t think anything was wrong with the pitch. Somebody made a hundred on that same pitch, on a wearing pitch, so I think it’s just application. And I’m wondering if that had happened in India, with what they would have done to the ground persons,” he said during the Ekam Awards night in Kolkata.
“You know, because if you lose in a day and a bit, the first thing they’ll look at is the pitch. India had a turning pitch here the other day, and everybody said some terrible things about the pitch.
“If you’re playing top-class cricket, you should be able to handle those sorts of things.” There is a huge divide in world cricket with India enjoying nearly 40 per cent of the ICC revenues. England and Australia are the other two teams which enjoy financial clout.
“I couldn’t see all these board members sitting down and saying to the rest of the people, three countries are getting 180 million and the rest are getting 80. And one of them who’s getting 80 million is now nearly 100 years into that association,” he said.
“To me, if you’re now up there with the rest, everybody should get the same thing. Look at the Premier League. Does Manchester United get more than Liverpool? Does Arsenal get more than Chelsea? No. They get the same.
“And the same thing should happen with the Premier League. And don’t forget, West Indies, we have 14 islands whilst the other countries are just one country. “And it takes us a lot of money to hold our tournaments because we’ve got to fly everywhere. We can’t go by boat or train or a bus or anything like that.
“So to me, everybody should get the same. But if you’re at the top, you get a little bit more for being there, or number two, number three. But you must have enough money to look after your cricket. You can’t give three countries a great set of money. It is not fair at all.”
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