Swallow your pride, says Tubby
CRICKET Australia board member Mark Taylor has called for compromise on both sides of the pay war and says it should be cricket’s top priority to start repairing fractured relationships between players and administrators.
Taylor has been an advocate of CA’s hard-line approach at various stages throughout this saga, however, speaking at a Channel Nine launch in Melbourne, he admitted that the governing body must concede ground — as do the players — for the sake of stopping the bloodshed.
The concession is the first sign yet that CA might consider scaling back its mission to significantly change the revenue share model players are fighting so vehemently to retain.
Pressure is building from key CA sponsors like KFC to get a deal done, and even Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has weighed in from the UK to order administrators to “settle it”.
Australian Cricketers Association general manager Tim Cruickshank is due to fly to India later this week to explore options for selling the image rights for the Australian cricket team.
Australian skipper Steve Smith’s manager Warren Craig is set to also meet with some of the same Indian companies as the ACA, as he makes a trip of his own.
Meanwhile Usman Khawaja has joined Mitchell Starc in tweeting about his deal with a luxury car dealership in competition with Toyota — something they wouldn’t be allowed to publicise if there was an MOU in place.
With only a few weeks until the Test team is due to tour Bangladesh, all stakeholders are demanding a resolution.
Taylor, the former Australian captain and one of the game’s most respected statesmen said it would be an unacceptable situation for the Test side to not tour Bangladesh and for that reason he remains confident that no more cricket will be lost.
In May Taylor supported CA chief executive James Sutherland’s call to effectively threaten players with unemployment if the MOU lapsed, adamant the ACA had shown no impetus to negotiate.
However, now that dead- line is nearly two weeks past, Taylor says it’s clear both sides must swallow pride.
“There’s got to be compromise on both sides,” said Taylor alongside fellow commentators at the Nine launch. “I think at any negotiation you give and take. When you get to that situation, which I hope we are getting very close to now, then you get close to a resolution.
“I’m confident there will be a resolution soon. I don’t know when but I just hope both sides keep working hard at it.
“I’m still very confident there will be an Ashes series and I’m very confident there will be some Test match cricket played by Australia before then.’’