Players could be sub-contracted to Cricket Australia to "rescue marquee series, including the Ashes, if the damaging pay crisis threatens the home summer of cricket," according to Barrett & Pierik of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. Players, many of them "suddenly out of contract as of the weekend, converged on a Sydney hotel on Sunday for an emergency meeting" which Test captain Steve Smith "also joined via a phone hook-up" from the U.S. Australian Cricketers' Association CEO Alistair Nicholson "described the impasse in relations" with the governing body as a "significant watershed moment" for the game, "on a par" with the World Series Cricket split of '77. With the "politically important one-day series in India" in October and the Ashes from November "also in doubt," the ACA announced that it "devised a rescue plan to sell players' cricketing rights back to CA for such events." Tens of thousands of tickets have been sold for the five-Test series against England, starting at the Gabba on Nov. 23. Nicholson: "There is still the ability for the uncontracted players to assign their cricket-playing rights to, say, the ACA. Obviously, the venues are all booked and the schedule is there. So it's just a different way to get the players playing cricket contractually" (SMH, 7/2). In Sydney, Peter Lalor wrote while "the chance there may be an Ashes tour is good news for fans, the last thing administrators want to do is lose control of the playing group completely." But as things stand, "the majority of Australia's elite cricketers" are no longer under the organization's control. Players will "continue to train but have resolved not to co-operate until a resolution is reached." There are 70 domestic players who are on multi-year contracts either with their state or Big Bash League franchises. Technically "they are still employed," but those players decided to stand by their unemployed colleagues "and will refuse instruction to play unless legally compelled." CA said that it "would not compel those players to partake in any tours" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 7/3). REUTERS' Nick Mulvenney reported at "the heart of the acrimonious dispute" is CA's insistence that the two-decade-old model, under which players get a fixed percentage of revenue, "should be jettisoned." CA believes the revenue-share model "is unfit for modern times" and is starving grassroots cricket of funding, while players say that it has "underpinned the game's growth and prosperity over the past 20 years" (REUTERS, 7/2).
KEEPING THE FAITH?: In Sydney, Ben Horne wrote players "are confident they maintain the support of an increasingly disillusioned cricketing public." A war born out of "fiercely opposed ideologies over the revenue share model threatens to tear the summer pastime apart," and ACA exec committee member Shane Watson acknowledged that the fight "will be for nothing if the players lose the lifeblood of the game -- the fan." Industrial action in sport has "always been a dangerous beast for players in the court of public opinion, and robust opinions on social media prove this issue is no different," but Watson feels the fans are "largely sympathetic to their cause and that fighting for retention of the revenue share model" is not a "cash grab." He said, "Yep, there's no question (the fan is the most important stakeholder). It's as simple as understanding we're not asking for any more money" (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 7/2).
