Test format needs to remain viable or some rivals will go 'bankrupt' says Cricket Australia CEO

While the West Indies tries to determine a way to improve its once-fearsome test team, Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg warns that some rivals - without naming names - will go "bankrupt" if they continue to play the longest form of the game.

Greenberg, a former Australian Cricketers' Association chief who took over at the sport's national governing body in March, believes "scarcity in test cricket is our friend, not our foe."

"I don't think everyone in world cricket needs to aspire to play test cricket, and that might be OK," Greenberg told domestic media at an event marking 100 days to go before the Ashes series Down Under between England and Australia.

There are 12 full members of the International Cricket Council eligible to play test matches. They are Australia, England, South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Ireland.

But test cricket has taken a back seat to the shorter forms of the game - one-day internationals and the even more popular, made-for-television, Twenty20 matches. The T20 format includes the world's most popular cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League.

"We need to make sure we invest in the right spaces to play test cricket where it means something, and has jeopardy, and that's why the Ashes will be as enormous and as profitable as it is because it means something," Greenberg said.

There have been suggestions that a two-tier test system be developed so as to create more balanced results between the test cricket haves and have-nots.

West Indies this week held a two-day emergency summit for Caribbean cricket which included greats Brian Lara and Clive Lloyd. They are hoping to help create strategies to lift West Indies back toward the top of the international test format they dominated back in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The summit was called after a West Indies lineup scored just 27 runs in its second innings - one run short of the all-time test record for low totals - while losing the third of three tests to Australia.

Lara said after the summit that the Caribbean squad needs to take small steps to return to its once-vaunted place in test cricket.

"It's a long road, not something that's going to happen tomorrow," Lara said, adding that the review was long overdue. "It was not about the 27 runs. If it was 57 or 107, would we be feeling any better? I don't think so. It's the fact we've got something to address.

"And for us to get back on top or be a competitive nation in world cricket, we've got to address these situations shortly, quickly and hopefully we can reap the benefit in years to come."

Greenberg says it might be too late for some teams.

"A lot of traditionalists might not like that," he said. "I'm not suggesting I know the number that will play, but literally we're trying to send countries bankrupt if we force them to try to play test cricket.