Brearley voices Ashes concern amid ‘looming crisis’ fears

LONDON: MCC world cricket committee chairman Mike Brearley has said the threat of an Ashes boycott by Australia players is a “serious” concern amid fears of a “looming crisis” for Test cricket as a whole.

A bitter pay dispute between Australia’s board and players saw the two sides unable to reach an agreement before last week’s deadline after months of protracted talks.

The row, which threatens fixtures including this year’s prestige home Ashes series, intensified at the weekend when the Australian Cricketers’ Association said players would boycott an Australia A tour of South Africa this month unless a new deal was agreed by Friday.

Brearley, whose influential committee has Australia great Rodney Marsh, until recently the national selector, among its members, said Tuesday after a meeting at Lord’s: “We heard from Rodney Marsh that it seemed both sides were very intransigent and not getting close together, although there’s some rumour that there might be, in which case somebody we’ll have to give way.”

Brearley, England’s captain when they won the Ashes 5-1 in Australia in 1978/79 against a depleted home side weakened by mass ‘defections’ to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, added: “We think it’s a pretty serious thing.

“It could stop tours they are undertaking and series they are playing, including even the Ashes.”

Brearley explained the committee’s over-riding worry was how to ensure Test cricket remained financially attractive to all leading players in an era of lucrative Twenty20 franchises leagues especially enticing to cricketers from relatively weak domestic economies such as South Africa and the West Indies.

“I think the mood of the committee was that there was, if not a crisis, a looming, a potential crisis and that this crisis needs to be noticed and taken seriously,” he said.

One of the highlights of the traditional cricket calendar -the first Test between England and South Africa -- starts at Lord’s on Thursday.

Yet South Africa star batsman AB de Villiers is set to miss the entire four-match series as he recuperates from being a multiformat player in demand from T20 leagues. - AFP