Cricket South Africa CEO Haroon Lorgat revealed alternative plans are "already being hatched to cover for the absence of an Australia A team for a series starting there next week," according to Chris Barrett of THE AGE. Lorgat said that he had been warned by Cricket Australia of the "possibility of the tour not happening." An unofficial two-Test series between an Australia A party and a South Africa A side is due to begin in Pretoria on July 12 but "will be abandoned by Australian players unless there is significant progress in stalled pay talks with CA that have left many players out of contract since the weekend." That "remains a distant possibility," with CA CEO James Sutherland refusing to "accept the demand of the Australian Cricketers' Association that he enter negotiations himself in an effort to thrash out a peace deal." The uncertainty around the participation of the Australia A side in two four-day games and a one-day tri-series also including India has "complicated planning for Cricket South Africa," which is beginning to organize "contingency arrangements in the expectation of a tour boycott." Lorgat: "There is nothing at all that we can do about it. We'll have to deal with whatever happens" (THE AGE, 7/3). The BBC reported the ACA said that Australia A players "will boycott a tour of South Africa" if the dispute is not resolved. Australia A captain Usman Khawaja, who has played 23 Tests, said, "Hopefully something can be resolved, but if it's not, it's a tough decision that sort of has to be made. Not to go is a sacrifice in some respects but we see the broader picture" (BBC, 7/2). REUTERS' Nick Mulvenney reported ACA CEO Alistair Nicholson said, "They don't intend to tour but the reality is they don't fly out of the country until Friday. So the players are going to go into camp as planned and hopefully we can make some progress with regards to the MOU. There would need to be a significant breakthrough on the key issue of the revenue sharing model" (REUTERS, 7/2).
INT'L BACKING: The PA reported the Federation of Int'l Cricketers' Associations has "thrown its weight behind Australia's players in their ongoing pay stand-off with Cricket Australia." Nicholson sits on the FICA board, so the global players' body's alignment on the subject "hardly comes as a surprise," but its official statement "left no room for doubt." It read, "The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations today extended its support to the Australia Cricketers' Association (ACA) and its members. FICA is concerned with CA's desire to end the percentage revenue sharing model that has so successfully underpinned the partnership between the players and administrators in Australia for 20 years" (PA, 7/3).
'RUBBISH': In Sydney, Ben Horne wrote Australian cricketers have been "challenged to explain" why their dispute is not about money after former Test player Michael Slater launched a "scathing attack" on their "partnership" philosophy. Slater sympathized with the players’ "fierce" defense of the revenue share model given to them when he was playing in '97, but declared in a "heated" interview with current player Ed Cowan that he is "struggling to reconcile how the war engulfing the game could have descended into such bitterness if it isn’t about the cash." Cowan stood his ground and "hit back with an impassioned argument that the players’ prime motivation for wanting the revenue share retained is to hold an untrustworthy Cricket Australia administration to account for how it runs the game." Slater said that it was "rubbish" to suggest revenue share was the "only way to form a partnership in the game" (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 7/3).
