The former Australian captain and current national selector fears Test cricket is facing greater threats than at any point in recent times, but says that with shrewd international management, the purest form of the game can still thrive alongside the 50-over version and the ultra-popular Twenty20 format.

Sharing the wealth more evenly among the 10 Test playing nations in a bid to increase the number of competitive teams should be a major priority, Chappell said.

Of the 10 countries playing Test cricket, Zimbabwe is largely uncompetitive, while Bangladesh and the West Indies rarely trouble the top teams.

"That's what we've got to get to, I think, because Test cricket is challenging. A lot of countries don't have the population, or they don't have the money, or don't have either to be able to produce a competitive Test match team," Chappell said.

"I know how much Cricket Australia spends on all of its development programs, including domestic first-class cricket, to be able to get a competitive Test match team on the ground.

"There's not many countries that have got the population, the funding or the will to do that. A lot of teams are struggling to be competitive at the Test level.

"Somehow we've got to equalise the payments around the world because what we're seeing – take the West Indies for instance – top players electing not to play Test cricket because they're not getting paid as much as they get to play 20-over cricket around the world.

"If we can't balance that out a little bit then there's going to be no incentive for people to play Test cricket."

Chappell has long been an advocate for the Test match championship proposal, an ongoing competition that would culminate every two years in a series between the top two nations.

Each Test series around the world would be played for points to determine the world's best team on a biennial basis. Once a series final had been played to decide a champion, the slate would be wiped clean and teams would start playing for points again over the next two years.

A Test championship would increase the popularity of the longer game and allow it to survive against the shorter forms, Chappell believes.

"I reckon we can keep the three formats, but we're going to have to be a lot better planned," he said. "I think all the international boards are going to have to be prepared to give and take to some degree to be able to manage it.

"We have a 50-over World Cup every four years, we have a 20-over World Cup every two years, there's no reason why we can't have a Test match championship every couple of years, where every Test series that is played goes towards that championship, so there's some meaning behind every series.

"Whilst Australia's playing Pakistan in Australia, India's playing England in India, we're interested in what's happening in India because whoever wins over there might have an impact on what we're doing here.

"We've got to be clever about the way we set up the scheduling and make sure that the context of all the games is important, and people understand what's happening.

"The 50-over game is still very popular on television, it still works really well on television. I'm sure the administrators of the game are very reluctant to lose it because it's an important part of the business of cricket. There's room for all of them but obviously it's going to have to be managed really well."