Melbourne: Cricket Australia is on the verge of agreeing a new pay deal with the players’ union, ending a long impasse and avoiding the need for arbitration.
A Cricket Australia spokesman said yesterday that negotiations had advanced to the “final details” after days of lengthy talks with the Australian Cricketers’ Association.
News Ltd media on Tuesday declared a “peace deal brokered” and the “Ashes saved”, a reference to the upcoming test series against England.
But talks continued to grind on into yesterday.
Australia’s top 230 players have effectively been unemployed since the last five-year agreement expired on June 30 and an “A” tour of South Africa has already fallen victim to the lockout.
Australia captain Steve Smith told Fox Sports TV on Tuesday he was confident of a deal being brokered, but confirmed players would not travel to Bangladesh for a two-Test tour starting this month until the dispute was resolved.
“I’d like to, but as we’ve said for a long time we need to get the deal done first,” Smith said.
“I don’t think it would be fair for us to go away after the (Australia) A guys were very strong on not going away on their tour, for us to then go away I don’t think that’s fair.
“CA know this, they’ve been told this. I told (CA’s Executive General Manager Team Performance) Pat Howard personally that this was how things were going to be if there wasn’t a deal done.”
The dispute revolves around CA’s scrapping of the two-decade-old revenue share model, by which players get a fixed share of the organisation’s annual revenue, in the new pay deal. “It’s had some difficult moments,” the 28-year-old said.
“When this is all over with, I have to deal with Pat Howard, I have to deal with the (CA) Board and speak to (CA chief executive) James Sutherland so I have to be careful with what sort of lines I tread.”
CA chief executive James Sutherland proposed taking the matter to binding arbitration if a deal was not struck by early this week.
