“It’s (Twenty20) the same – it’s exactly the same. For me, it’s as serious as a one-day match or a Test match. It’s become exactly the same,” Clarke said.

“There’s no such thing as a game of hit and giggle. That’s something that has changed. It used to be about putting on a show, entertaining the crowd. But from a player point of view, that is no longer the case,” he was quoted as saying by Daily Telegraph.

As Australia prepares for the Twenty20 World Cup, beginning on Friday in the West Indies, Clarke pressed on the need to introduce Twenty20 contracts and asked Cricket Australia (CA) to extend the same to explosive batsman David Warner and all-rounder David Hussey.

“I’ve told Cricket Australia that they (Warner, Hussey) should have contracts. I think there should be a Twenty20 contract introduced. I know once you play a certain number of Twenty20 games you can get upgraded to a Cricket Australia contract.

“But players like David Warner and David Hussey … they’re here playing in a Twenty20 World Cup. They should be paid (under contract) for that,” he said.

“It’s a form of the game that we want to be the best in the world at. We’re not there yet, we’re improving, but this is a way for us to start,” he added.

This will be the first time MCC, the owners of London Lord’s Cricket Ground where the first of two Tests between Pakistan and Australia is due to start on July 13, has sponsored an international series in its 223-year history.

The series comes at a time when Pakistan, who will also be playing a Test and one-day series against England this English season, has become a no-go area for international cricket following a terror attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore last year.

MCC’s Australian secretary, Keith Bradshaw, told a news conference in the Long Room of the Lord’s Pavilion on Monday: “MCC is committed to the health of Test cricket, and by sponsoring the series and hosting the first Test, the club is supporting Pakistani cricket at a time when the country’s Test calendar has been decimated.

“We often speak about Tests being the pinnacle of the game – now we are acting to back up those words,” the former Tasmania batsman added.

Bradshaw refused to divulge how much money MCC was putting into the series, which also features a Test at Yorkshire’s Headingley ground in Leeds, citing “commercial confidentiality” but insisted it was a “not for profit exercise” as far as his club was concerned.

“We feel we are independent and to some extent the conscience of the game,” Bradshaw said of MCC, which is still responsible for overseeing the game’s Laws or rules.

“We are very thrilled Pakistan are coming here to play at the ‘home of cricket’.”

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) director of cricket operations Zakir Khan said: “We thank the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) and Cricket Australia for helping us out and making this Test and T20 series in England happen.

“We are also very thankful to MCC. When you are not playing your home series at home, it’s very difficult.

“Cricket is still very much at the same level, we have youngsters coming through. The passion is there, that will never die down,” he added.

It is nearly a century since Lord’s staged a neutral Test, during the 1912 triangular series involving England, Australia and South Africa.

Two Australian batsman, Warren Bardsley and Charlie Kelleway, scored Test centuries against South Africa at Lord’s that year but their achievements were not marked on the ground’s dressing room honours board.

That was rectified on Monday with the unveiling of a new honours board specially created for neutral Tests.

MCC is keen to stage more such matches at Lord’s, at a time when Test cricket outside of England is struggling to attract crowds, and Bradshaw said: “The last neutral Test was played here in 1912 and I hope we don’t have to wait the best part of a century to play another one.”

Clarke, who had number-one ranked Sehwag firmly within his sights before the start of the Test with just 16 ratings points separating the two, has dropped to fifth position after his contributions of 28 and 63 in the team’s second and last Test against New Zealand in Hamilton.

Clarke’s gap with Sehwag has also opened to 29 ratings points which reflects the close fight at the top as the Australia vice-captain has slipped three places after conceding only 13 ratings points.

Clarke’s fall has moved South African Hashim Amla back to second place with an opportunity to snatch the number-one position from Sehwag when he faces the West Indies in the three-Test series starting in Kingston on June 10.

Like Clarke, Australia captain Ricky Ponting too suffered a free-fall, dropping out of top 15.

Ponting, who scored 22 and six in Hamilton, has dropped out of the top 15 after slipping six places to 16th position.

When the Tasmanian takes the field against Pakistan at Lord’s on 13 July, he’ll be trying to avoid to drop to 20th position, his lowest-ranking in eight years which he had achieved against the same opposition after the Sydney Test in January.

India remains the number one Test team with three players — Sehwag (1st), Gautam Gambhir (6th) and Sachin Tendulkar (7th) — in the top 10 batsmen’s list.

In the bowlers’ chart led by South African Dale Steyn, Indian has two representatives in Zaheer Khan (6th) and Harbhajan Singh (7th).

Concerns have been raised over the classical five-day game as it struggles to counter the rapid rise in popularity of the Twenty20 format, especially with the launch of the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) last year.

Chappell, now a television commentator, blamed the packed international calendar for the situation, dubbing it a “jigsaw puzzle with many missing pieces”.

“Ever since T20 burst onto the international scene, there have been rumblings about the death of test cricket,” he wrote in a column in the Hindustan Times on Monday.

“The main barriers to improving the image of test cricket have been erected by the ICC (International Cricket Council) itself,” he said.”It has done the most to devalue test cricket.”

He attacked the scheduling of back-to-back tests, due to a busy calendar. “Those competing in all forms not only face an increased risk of injury but also have to prioritise their exertion levels.

“The latter could be a clue to the lack of genuine fast bowlers in the game.”

Last year, the ICC raised concerns over poor crowd figures during Australia’s test tour of India, while president David Morgan has said the body was considering four-day tests as part of innovations to keep the form of the game exciting to fans.

“Diminishing crowds at tests in all countries barring England and Australia is a worry,” Chappell said.

“Adding to those concerns, West Indies are in disarray and Pakistan is a no-go area.”