 All right, we're sticking with the cricket on the Sportsman zone Australian legend former captain Steve war is lashing out of the International Cricket Council for the current state of test cricket war says the credibility of the longest format is deteriorating with the teams not being able to send their best team specifically calling out the West Indies team. He says it's pretty obvious what the problem is the West Indies aren't sending their full strength side to Australia this summer. They haven't picked a full strength test team for a couple of years now. Someone like Nicholas Peran is really a test batsman who doesn't play a test cricket. Jason Holder probably their best player is not playing now. Even Pakistan didn't send a full side to Australia. What then called for the ICC to set payment standards for test series. I understand why players don't come. They're not getting paid properly. I don't understand why ICC or the top countries who are making a lot of money don't just have a regulation set fee for test matches, which is a premium. So people are incentivized to play test cricket. Otherwise, they'll just play T 10 or T 20. The public are the ones who are going to suffer because it's not the full side playing. So it's not test cricket. Fazir Mohamed, you've lamented this issue and issues like these a number of times over the years. I don't know exactly where you're going to start, but I wonder if it is at the point where had it not been Australia that the West Indies were touring with an understrand side and it was somewhere else like Bangladesh, Steve Woh and his friends wouldn't care, would they? Well, if this were real reality instead of virtual reality, I'd reach through the screen and shake your hand because that is precisely the point. It's only because someone of the prominence of Steve Woh has said this that it's a discussion. Many people at varying levels, even nobodies like me, would have talked about it ad nauseam for years that this was bound to happen. It's continued to happen, will happen. We've seen it happening for more than a decade now. It's going to continue to happen, but only because it's in an Australian summer and they are feeling a bit hard done by to have to endure a depleted West Indies team and across the water in New Zealand who have to endure a depleted South African team. That is a discussion because someone of the prominence of Steve Woh has said it. So yes, really, it is trampling over well beaten ground. It's like Christopher Columbus arriving in the New World where millions of natives would have trampled over that ground for millennia. Yeah, I know the T20 World Cup is six months away. Are you surprised that so many teams seem to be almost one dimensional in their look ahead to that T20 World Cup when it is possibly by extension affecting what's happening in the test format? I don't think so, Ricardo. I think it has more to do with the fact that it's all about the money in T20. It's all about the fact that the Indians run the show. Remember, the SAT20 is virtually a proxy of the IPL. All of the franchises are owned by the same franchises. ILT20 as well. Exactly. And therefore, this is where the money is. And this is the point, Ricardo. Let's say, for example, that the two test matches coming up against Australia for the West City starting next week in Adelaide. And notwithstanding the expectation that the Caribbean side will be annihilated, Shamar Joseph, the fast bowler, has a fantastic series that Alec Athenez produces a few brilliant innings. And then comes the offer from the IPL. Is he expected to say no? Are we so naive to think that players of the modern era will say, you know what? I'll say no, because I value test cricket so much, which nobody in the Caribbean talks about, which nobody at Cricket West Indies takes the time to highlight our great eras and our great legends. But you know what? I'll turn away the 100,000 US or the 200,000 US, because I want to enjoy the privilege of playing two test matches every four months. I mean, it's foolishness. Yeah, I love the way you're thinking, by the way, Fais, in terms of the possible performances from or West Indies players down under from your lips, the God's ears, which I can see. Do talk to me about Steve Waugh's suggestion, though, as to how the ICC and the major boards, the ones with the financial firepower, can alleviate this problem. Ricardo, Steve Waugh is not a fool. Steve Waugh knows that is not the ICC dictating this. It's the big three, India, England, and his own Australia. And again, let me put it in context to you for all this talk that Steve Waugh is giving now on showing concern and crying about test cricket. How much has Australia ever done for test cricket from 1877 to the present time? What has Australia ever done to further the cause of test cricket? I'm not saying the ashes. I'm not saying ensuring that they play five test matches against India, especially in the last decade. What have they ever done to ensure that there is competitiveness that emerging nations are given opportunities? Let me give you a classic case in point, because I know you, you're always pressed for time on a packed show like this. New Zealand played their first test match in 1930. Between 1930 and 1973, 43 years, they played only one test match against Australia. And they are the closest neighbors. They are just two hours flying time away. Of course, the Aussies will say, well, they weren't any good, right? Because in the 46th, they beat them in two days. But the point I'm trying to make is that when it comes to Australia, because just a few years ago, they turned back a home series against Bangladesh because there wasn't any money in it. So if you're talking about preserving test cricket and prioritising test cricket and showing concern for test cricket, Australia is removed from that discussion. Yeah, Fazan, a quick comment before we leave you on his view of Jason Holder as being one of the current, the best test player who's not going to be showing up for this test series. What do you make of that statement? I agree with him wholeheartedly, because I think Jason has that ability. And indeed, as he said, while he's opting out of this series, he wants to play in the series in England, probably the subsequent one against South Africa and the Caribbean. I'm interested, though, in his reference to Nicholas Puran as a test batsman. I mean, Nicholas Puran, when last has Nicholas Puran even played first class cricket? I'm not saying that he doesn't have the tools to be an excellent test match batsman, but his temperament, the fact that he's been weaned and nurtured on the shortest form of the game. How do you come to the conclusion that Nicholas Puran is a test batsman? Isn't it on potential, though, Faz, because if you think about it, players like Nicholas Puran, I guess we've seen Shea Hope at the test level, and even players before them, even like Alindel Simmons, before the advent of T20 cricket, had those players been around then, then chances are they would have been playing test cricket. We would have seen Nicholas Puran play a lot of four-day cricket. Think about someone like Akira and Pollard, who scored a first-class center for Trinidad and Tobago, and probably that was the first time that he came to our attention. It was in four-day cricket, and then he took T20 cricket by storm, and then those players no longer, understandably, wanted to play the four-day version of the game. So I think, personally, I understand what Steve is saying, that he has the potential to be a test batsman, even though he has not played the format. And since we just spoke about David Warner, remember that Warner and Faz would remember this, that he really initially was a T20-star batsman and made the transition, which you referenced earlier on, Faz, that players shouldn't bottle themselves into the box of being one-dimensional. But the player has to want to play it, though, Faz. And I think Nicholas Puran has not come out and said that. Well, let me just clarify a couple of points there. It's often mentioned that David Warner made history as the first player to play for Australia without having played a first-class match. He played T20 cricket. He didn't play test cricket until he had played first-class cricket for New South Wales. So let's not get it mixed up. That's one point. Second point, Steve Ward didn't see that Nicholas Puran is a potential test batsman. I think that's what he made the old Faz. No, no, no, no. Don't come with that, Ricardo. He didn't say that. He said he's a test batsman. And at this present time, Nicholas Puran is not a test batsman. No, he has not. He said he is a test batsman who doesn't play a test cricket. The suggestion there for me is that he has the potential to play at the test level. Of course. But in the same way that David Warner, with all that potential, needed to play first-class cricket because of the specific requirements of the red ball, the moving ball, the four slips and a gully, the very different atmosphere, you need to prove yourself in that. And then you get that opportunity. So, yes, David Warner's phenomenal. He's record-breaking, but by the time he played his first test match, he had already played enough first-class cricket to prove his worth in the longer form. Yeah, but Morag, Morag made a good point earlier as well, Faz, because you're in TNT with young Puran. She's suggesting that he hasn't shown any inclination or desire to play test cricket. Is that true? Well, that's absolutely correct. You'll recall a tour of New Zealand a few years ago when they were given that opportunity to play some first-class matches because there were some limited over matches, T20 matches prior, and he opted out. He was one of those who opted out. And as I said, I don't necessarily blame them. People get all worked up that these young players, they don't value test cricket, they don't value test cricket. Well, I would put it to you that the games administrators don't value test cricket. Hence, playing two test matches every three months doesn't make any sense. And Faz, as you say, administrators, you know, hearing all these things, basically they're insulting West Indies cricket by the statement saying that, you know, because the truth is, our understrength squad, I want to believe, is our squad. Whether it looks understrength, I don't see any major names being left out other than Jason Holder. So to me, it's a slap in the face again for West Indies cricket that, you know, all cricket is just not up to the level. Well, I would say that we are accustomed to being referred to in such disparaging ways. I recall Sheila Berry of the Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2012, something I'll never forget, referring to a West Indies team led by Chris Gale as a bunch of waves and strays, waves and strays meaning homeless, going anywhere, sorts of people. And we stomach these things and the point of what I'll say very quickly is that there aren't enough Caribbean voices out there putting these people in their place because again, you have an ambitious, you have a Michael holding, we had the late Tony Kosier, who would not hesitate to respond to these ridiculous comments being made. But there are very few of them around. Whereas when you talk about England, when you talk about Australia, now when you talk about India, everything one of their former players says is magnified many times over by their media, but that doesn't exist in the Caribbean. So even if an Andy Robert says something, it barely makes the international news. Yeah, I don't want to seem to be lawyering for Steve Wall, because I'm pretty sure he has very good ones, but I just want to get back to the point because I think I understand what Steve Wall is saying because if you listen to him carefully, what I think he is getting at and when he calls someone like Nicholas Puran is to suggest that if Test cricket had the right sort of compensation, then players like Nicholas Puran would be more inclined to play Test cricket. And so you would not be voting in any way the credibility of the game's longest format, which is what he is suggesting is happening at this stage, because it's too easy for a player of Puran's quality to choose T20 cricket because everything is in the favor of T20 cricket. You're speaking about three hours as opposed to five days, and then the compensation is significantly better. And that's why I made the point many times in our previous discussions that I would have seen Nicholas Puran as a latter the Alvin Kalicharan. I don't know if you recall making that reference every now and then, because if he were given that opportunity, surely he had all the tools to do so. But the point I'm making is that what Steve Wall is going on about has been talked about for at least a decade by other personalities in the game who don't have that platform, who don't have that level of prominence. So basically what he is saying is beaten ground. Do we need more Steve Walls to say it for it to change, Fuzz? I don't think I'll make a difference because right now the rulers of the game are in here. So you probably need a Ravishashtri or Sunil Gavaskar or Virat Kohli saying something along the lines of look, you know, we need to reign it in. We need to think in terms of test smart cricket. We need to have windows for test smart cricket. You know what would be the surest sign that the authorities are really interested in a level playing field of a test smart cricket? It would be if the ashes were just three test series. That's not going to happen. Fuzz, it's been a pleasure chatting with you as usual. We'll chat again soon. Thank you. All right. Fazir Mohamed, let's take a break. We'll be back with more on the sports magazine.