Steve Waugh has played more Tests, taken more wickets and accumulated more runs than the entire Bangladesh team put together.
The 38-year-old Test campaigner, who will lead Australia into the first Test at Marrara Oval here on Friday, is also thought to earn more than all the Bangladesh team.
The gulf in experience between cricket’s leading team and the Test minnows is graphically illustrated in Waugh’s 18-year record.
His 160 Tests eclipse the 126 played by the whole Bangladesh touring party, who have scored only 4 508 Test runs between them — well under half of Waugh’s 10 265 runs.
Even Waugh’s part-time medium-pacers have netted him 91 wickets — compared to the 71 extracted by cricket’s newest Test nation.
Waugh and the rest of the Australia side will receive Aus$11 000 ($7 200) each per Test.
The Bangladesh players earn about Aus$1 700 ($1 100) a game, captain Khaled Mahmud said here on Thursday.
Leading Bangladeshi players are contracted at US$1000 per month. The top-ranked players under Cricket Australia contract scheme earn 20 times that amount.
While the Bangladesh wages appear dwarfed compared to those paid to Australia’s cricket elite, they appear lucrative in Bangladesh.
Mahmud said he is content with his remuneration, because Bangladesh is a new cricket nation.
”As a start it is not bad, I think, because we just started cricket,” Mahmud said.
”Australia have a big reputation from more than 125 years. We are just two or three years into Test cricket.
”The time will come when the Bangladeshi people will get more.”
Money aside, Mahmud said representing Bangladesh — home to more than 130-million — was a reward in itself.
”Definitely [there’s] a pride,” he said. – Sapa-AFP