No end in sight as Australian cricket pay war descends into turmoil

Alex Broun 00:06 29/06/2017
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Mail
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • James Sutherland.

    How has it come to this?

    If it wasn’t hard enough just to put the best players on the field and win cricket matches in the whirlwind international schedule of the modern game, Australian cricket is in the middle of the biggest self-inflicted crisis since Kerry Packer split the game in the 1970s.

    The Packer split occurred because the then Australian Cricket Board (ACB) refused to give the TV mogul the rights to their Test matches so Packer went behind their backs and signed up all the world’s best players for his own rebel league.

    World Series Cricket, featuring so many legends of the game, ran from 1977 to 1979, until the ACB finally relented and gave Packer the TV rights.

    But this time is totally different. There is no eccentric billionaire stealing the game from under the authority’s noses – just two extremely stubborn set of people who seem bent on making the fate of Australian cricket their own personal battlefield.

    On one side – CA boss James Sutherland – a former cricketer himself, who is determined to ram through a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) governing players pay packets, whether the players like it or not.

    On the other side is “Big Jack”, Alistair Nicholson, the boss of the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA), the player’s union, and a former AFL player known for his ruggedly brutal style.

    At dispute is “revenue sharing” – with the CA wanting to share the game’s profits with only the very elite players while the players want to keep the existing model, where the surplus is shared through all levels of the game.

    CA say they want to keep more of the surplus so they can channel it back to grass roots themselves – not trusting the local state bodies to do it.

    It seems an incredibly spurious reason to bring Australia’s top summer sport to its knees but incredibly it is about to happen.

    What makes the situation even more ludicrous is that the June 30 MOU expiry deadline has been looming for months. Both sides have known that the bridge was out but the train just keeps picking up steam.

    Most insiders in Australian cricket now fully expect CA and ACA to “fall off the cliff together” on Friday when the current MOU runs out.

    And Sutherland isn’t even in Australia to try and find a last minute solution – he’s in the United Kingdom.

    It’s like an episode of Home and Away, although even their script writers couldn’t come up with anything so hard to believe.

    So what happens now when the old MOU expires on Friday with no new arrangement in place?

    Essentially the top band of cricketers in Australia – Steve Smith, David Warner, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc etc etc – become free agents. Without contracts they can go and play wherever they like – the new T20 Global League in South Africa perhaps a first port of call. Cricket South Africa are licking their lips at the prospect of the talent soon to become available.

    Also joining these new rebels in South Africa could be the Australia A team who are due to tour there shortly. Their ranks could include five CA contracted players – Usman Khawaja, Glenn Maxwell, Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird and Travis Head – who have been offered “free contracts” to go on the tour until the impasse is solved.

    Hotels, meals and accommodation will be covered but the players will be reverting to amateur status. No, we are not making this up!

    The “free five” are being forced into an incredibly difficult decision that could determine their cricketing careers – do they go on the tour and be seen as the patsies of CA or do they stand with the ACA and put their international careers in jeopardy?

    It is completely unfair to put these players in this uneasy position but that is exactly what is happening.

    The other option is the tour of South Africa is cancelled and both parties try to work out a deal before the tour of Bangladesh in August.

    Even the Bangladesh tour could go by the wayside but in October there is the one-day series with India and CA cannot afford to pass up that cash windfall, even if they select a team from the Sydney club competition to represent the nation.

    Thankfully, a lockout has been averted with the contracted players still free to access CA’s training and medical facilities, even after the MOU expires but how many players will take that option, in fear of being accused of crossing the picket line?

    So, for now, all attention turns to whether the “free five” will turn up for the tour of South Africa with the sporting public of Australia watching on in horror for the next twist in the tale.

    Recommended