Duo cops salary collapse
But Bancroft still on WA payroll
CRICKET STEVE Smith and David Warner have just experienced cricket’s version of plunging off the fiscal cliff, but Cameron Bancroft is still getting paid.
Over the weekend in Toronto as locals celebrated Canada Day, the Cricket Australia salaries of the deposed captain and vice-captain went from somewhere in the vicinity of $2-2.5 million to … zero.
June 30 marked the end of Smith and Warner’s existing CA deals, and they won’t receive another cent from the governing body until the end of their 12-month bans.
Before they face off against each other in the early hours of this morning (Australian time) they had already woken up with a pair of golden ducks.
However, that hasn’t been the case for the third and final man punished over the balltampering scandal.
Bancroft is still getting paid due to a contracting technicality of sorts where he’s still on a multi-year state deal with Western Australia.
Cricket Australia weren’t able or willing to terminate an existing contract as part of the heavy sanctions they handed down.
But in Smith and Warner’s case – because they were on one-year national deals – CA could simply not renew them for the new contract cycle.
The irony of course is Smith and Warner – and other highprofile stars – last year rejected offers of multi-year national contracts from Cricket Australia, who at the time were using the method as a tactic to break apart the players’ union during the bitter pay dispute.
Had Smith and Warner taken those deals and ran, they may not have copped the $2 million whack they’ve just experienced.
Bancroft had been upgraded to a CA contract based on the Test matches he played during the Ashes and against South Africa, but once that deal expired on June 30 he has now reverted back to the Western Australia deal that was already in place for 2018-19.
Clearly Bancroft is on nowhere near the kind of dollars Smith and Warner have been earning, with base state contracts rarely maxing over $150,000 before match payments are added.
Bancroft’s sanction is also only nine months and he will be back playing for WA for the second half of the summer, while Warner and Smith are gone for the entire domestic season.
It’s WA paying Bancroft not the governing body, but now that June 30 has been and gone it may still raise eyebrows that when there were three players all punished for the one incident at the one time, that they have been dealt with under different conditions.
It’s been estimated Smith and Warner may have lost up to $5 million out of the scandal.
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