Peace deal an Ashes boost

JACKSON Bird can breathe a big sigh of relief with the cricket pay dispute finally being settled.

The Tasmanian Tigers paceman can now focus on his objective for the summer, playing in the Ashes series for Australia against England starting at the Gabba on November 23.

A resolution to the longrunning dispute was announced yesterday but not before it cost Bird a tour of South Africa with Australia A in June. But the 23-year-old veteran of eight Test matches hopes to win a spot in Australia’s impending two-Test tour of Bangladesh.

Then, hopefully, it’s “hello Ashes”.

“That’s what I’m hoping for. Absolutely. You never know with selection, so we’ll see how we go,” Bird said.

“That decision will be made in the next couple of days.”

A Bangladesh bash would enhance his chances of an Ashes cap.

“The Ashes is the pinnacle of Australian cricket,” he said.

“To play in the Ashes and be part of a big series at home would be fantastic,” Bird said.

“There is a lot of cricket to be played up until then, so I’ve just got to focus on playing for Tassie and starting the season off well and who knows what will happen.

“It was the highlight of my career so far playing in the Ashes in England, and it would be awesome to do that in Australia.”

Bird had a state contract to tide him over during the five-month dispute.

“It has been a pretty difficult time for some of the guys being unemployed,” Bird said.

“It’s good the guys can focus on the upcoming season and cricket can move forward, which is good to see.

“I was one of the lucky ones. I had a previous contract with Tasmania, but it would have been pretty difficult for some of the guys not getting paid.

“It was a bit of a shame it turned out the way it did, being played out in public, but all players are pretty happy now the deal has been done and we can get back to what we love doing and what we do best and that’s play cricket.”

Cricket Tasmania can now sign its out-of-contract players — all of the women’s players in both the Roar and Hurricanes, and half of the men, including big guns George Bailey, Tim

We can now go and contract those players we have been talking to over the past five months and sign the players who are out of contract ... we can also start thinking about the season ahead without distraction — NICK CUMMINS

Paine and Alex Doolan. It can also sign its Hurricanes men’s imports.

Cricket Tasmania chief executive Nick Cummins is at the CEOs conference in Melbourne, where he will today meet Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland to go through the details of the deal.

“We now have certainty,” Mr Cummins said.

“We can now go and contract those players we have been talking to over the past five months and sign the players who are out of contract.

“We can also start thinking about the season ahead without distraction.”

First thing on Monday, Cricket Tasmania will start signing its state players as a priority.

“We will move onto the Big Bash contracts after that,” Mr Cummins said. “With the overseas players, it means we can start to get everything together and get that across to them in the next week or so.

“It’s great that we’ve got the issue locked away. This is what we’ve all been waiting for, so we are very pleased. We will get all of the details from James Sutherland tomorrow because there’s a lot of maths involved in the deal.”