Cricket pay deal has its flaws, says Erskine

AUSTRALIA’S cricketers are fighting for the right cause but their payment system is still ripe for a major shake-up.

This is the view of James Erskine, the entrepreneur hired by the players to guide them through the last great pay war of 1997 in which they secured a deal which guaranteed them roughly a quarter of the game’s revenue in Australia.

Cricket Australia wants to abolish that system in the next memorandum of understanding while the players are demanding it must continue, providing an impasse which could result in strike action for the tour of Bangladesh in August or next season’s Ashes.

“Without the players, Cricket Australia have nothing so they should realise a percentage of overall revenue for the players is totally fair,’’ Erskine said.

“But they have a situation where some of the top players can get up to $2.5 million and are not performing and that has to be looked at.

“There should be more bonuses for performances. I’m not saying that money goes back to Cricket Australia if the player does not perform but back into the player’s pot.

“I would flatten out the contract payments so that the gap between the No.1 and No.20 player on the list does not span from $2.5 million to a few hundred thousand dollars. It’s a team game.

“You don’t deserve to be playing $2.5 million if you are losing left, right and centre.

“Since the Warne and McGrath years Australia has gone up and down. It has not been the same which is understandable.

“But we have had eras since then where teams performed poorly and players took the money and there were grumbles whether it really mattered that much to them.

“I am not sure about that but you don’t want a team where a player prefers scoring a century to winning a Test.’’

Erskine hopes the dispute does not lead to strike action by the players because it would turn public sentiment against them.