Cricket Australia on a collision course
New Zealand’s Cricket Players Association boss believes Australia’s top cricketers are genuine in their walkout threat as their bitter dispute shows no sign of a resolution.
Heath Mills, soon to begin negotiations with New Zealand Cricket (NZC) for a new deal when the current eight-year agreement expires in August 2018, struggles to see a way forward in Cricket Australia’s (CA) pay standoff with its players.
‘‘They’re heading for difficult waters in Australia. The players have been very vocal and I think they’re being very sincere in what they’re saying,’’ Mills said.
CA chief executive James Sutherland’s email threatening to stop paying players after the current deal expires on June 30 met a sharp response from star batsman David Warner.
He said the players would not ‘‘buckle at all’’ from their demand that the existing revenue-sharing arrangement with state cricketers be retained, even if it placed upcoming fixtures including next summer’s Ashes series under threat.
‘‘If it gets to the extreme they might not have a team for the Ashes,’’ Warner said.
‘‘I really hope they can come to an agreement . . . we don’t really want to see this panning out like that where we don’t have a team [and] we don’t have cricket in the Australian summer.’’
Warner said players would simply ‘‘play somewhere else’’ in Twenty20 leagues.
Mills, who is aligned with
Alistair Nicholson and the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA), blamed CA. He felt the current standoff was ‘‘inevitable’’ due to CA becoming a big corporate entity which conducted negotiations differently than it used to.
‘‘What I find really difficult to understand is the approach from Cricket Australia towards the players, where they’re dumping offers and proposals in the public domain and not actually getting around a table and working with the players and their representatives to find a solution,’’ Mills said.
‘‘To say to the players ‘here’s what we’re going to pay you, take it or leave it’, it’s just not conducive to working relationships.’’
Top players such as Warner, Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc – who collect annual retainers in the vicinity of A$2 million – were reportedly approached by CA with extra cash if they didn’t play the lucrative Indian Premier League. That was described as ‘‘laughable’’ by Warner.
Said Mills: ‘‘These senior players have been made individual offers behind the Players’ Association, by Cricket Australia. They could earn more money if they accepted those offers but they’re actually saying ‘no, we want to look after the collective, it’s not about us as individuals’.
‘‘Those are the values we want to see in our athletes. I know for sure it’s the behaviour of Cricket Australia that has the players more concerned than anything.’’
Mills was a central figure in the sometimes bitter pay dispute of 2002, which was resolved with New Zealand Cricket after the prospect of strike action was raised.
As he prepares to go into bat for the players this time around, he struggles to see relations with NZC plummeting to the level currently seen across the Tasman.
‘‘Whilst we will have robust discussions the relationship is really strong here in New Zealand. There’s a lot of respect from NZ Cricket towards the players, so I couldn’t for a minute believe that NZC would behave like Cricket Australia are at the moment.’’