‘Saving Test Cricket and Generating Revenue Are Two Different Things’: Sri Lanka’s Angelo Mathews blasts ICC, Big 3

The man, who featured in 199 Tests between 2009 and 2025, said that there is no “such thing called bigger and smaller nations” in Test cricket. It hit the ICC and the Big 3 where it hurts the most, targeting their hypocrisy of saving the format by playing it among themselves. 

Mathews’ message was blunt: Test status is not a tiered privilege, and revenue should not be the sole architect of the calendar.

The Context: A Championship of Unequal Opportunity

Mathews’ frustration is rooted in the systemic “ghosting” of smaller nations by the Big 3 (India, England, and Australia). While these nations claim to be the guardians of the red-ball game, the 2025-2027 World Test Championship (WTC) schedule tells a story of exclusion.

In 2025 alone, Sri Lanka was allocated just four Test matches—their lowest in over a decade. By contrast, the Big 3 continue to play five-test “mega-series” that dominate the calendar and the revenue pool.

The Numbers: The Growing Chasm

Mathews’ claim that “you can’t have one team playing 20 games and another playing 10” is backed by the stark reality of the current WTC cycle:

The Financial Fallout

For Sri Lanka, playing only 2-test series is a commercial death sentence. Broadcasters pay significantly less for short series, and the “points-per-game” system in the WTC leaves zero room for error. If Sri Lanka loses one session in a 2-match series, their tournament is effectively over, while a Big 3 team can lose two Tests in a 5-match series and still reach the final.

The Hypocrisy of the “Saviors”

Mathews, who has 8214 runs at an outstanding average of 44, has hit a nerve by exposing the “Big 3 Hypocrisy.” These boards often claim that Test cricket is “unviable” in other countries, yet they are the ones who vote for schedules that starve smaller boards of high-value content.

• Revenue vs. Preservation: The Big 3 prioritize the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and The Ashes because they generate hundreds of millions in ad revenue. However, they use this revenue to fund their own T20 leagues (IPL, BBL, The Hundred), which then overlap with the windows smaller nations need for their own Test series.
• The “One-Off” Insult: Mathews’ demand to stop playing “one-off” tests targets the trend where major teams offer a single Test to a smaller nation just to “tick a box” before moving on to a more lucrative white-ball series.

Mathews’ words matter

The 38-year-old Sri Lankan all-rounder, who says that he has more to give to cricket, by not retiring from white-ball formats, has exposed the uncomfortable truth: The Big 3 are not preserving a sport; they are protecting a business model. By conflating “revenue generation” with “keeping the game alive,” they have created a system where Test cricket thrives in three zip codes while the rest of the world is priced out.

As Mathews put it today: “Test status is equal to all test playing nations.” Until the ICC forces a balanced calendar where every nation plays a minimum of 15 Tests per cycle, the “World” in the World Test Championship remains a marketing term, not a sporting reality.