Leg­endary Aus­tralian bats­man, Ricky Ponting, is bat­ting for West In­dies Test crick­eters.

The for­mer Aus­tralia crick­et cap­tain says the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) has a role to play in en­sur­ing that play­ers from small­er Test-play­ing na­tions are paid bet­ter for play­ing the longest form of the game.

He used West In­dies crick­eters as an ex­am­ple of those who tend choose to play fran­chise crick­et rather than Test crick­et.

Ponting was speak­ing at an event or­gan­ised by the ICC ahead of the World Test Cham­pi­onship fi­nal be­tween In­dia and Aus­tralia at the Oval, from June 7.

The crick­et­ing leg­end was quot­ed as say­ing:

"It has be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to groom the young­sters in the Caribbean, for in­stance, who want to chase the dream of play­ing Test crick­et. Their pay­ment sys­tem in the Caribbean com­pared to some of the fran­chise leagues, it doesn't match up, and Sri Lan­ka will be the same and Bangladesh will be the same."

"It is not the case in In­dia, Eng­land and Aus­tralia. You are paid well to play Test crick­et for your coun­try and most as­pire to play the Test match game. There is a role to play for the ICC here,” Ponting ob­served.

He rec­om­mend­ed: “Make the pay­ments bit more even across in­ter­na­tion­al Test crick­et to at­tract play­ers from these dif­fer­ent coun­tries who want to play for their coun­try."