Australia players mull Bangladesh boycott

Photo: AP

New Delhi: Australia’s senior players voted at a secret meeting in Sydney, on Tuesday morning to boycott the tour of Bangladesh, scheduled next month, if a deal is not reached in the dispute with Cricket Australia before they leave.

Captain Steve Smith and Vice-captain David Warner attended the meeting with Australian Cricket Association chief executive Alastair Nicholson to consider their options after a major break down in the talks at the end of last week.

According to the Australian media, a number of alternatives had been discussed in the meeting, including attending the tour under a special contractual arrangement but in the end the players resolved to stand by the resolution they had reached at their meeting on July 2 and refused to participate in any tours unless there is a new MOU in place.

This is the fourth week of unemployment for the Australian cricketers since the failure to reach a new enterprise deal with the CA took place earlier this month.

Earlier, the squad had voted to attend the training camp in Darwin on August 10 but will not get on the plane seven days later for the Bangladeshi tour, unless an agreement is reached. The first match of the two Test series is due to start 10 days later.

Previously, Australia A squad had to go through a similar process before abandoning the tour to South Africa earlier in the month.

The ACA believed it was close to a deal with CA this time last week and presented a Terms Sheet which saw the players retain the revenue share model and sacrifice up to $30m of their pay to grassroots cricket.

CA has declared from the outset that it will not enter into the revenue share arrangement which has been part of all MOU deals over the past two decades.

The ACA sent every player an email over the weekend claiming CA had “thwarted” its attempts to broker a peace.

The players were clearly unimpressed as a few of them took to twitter to show their displeasure.

“Not sure the players can do much more to solve the dispute. We’re really proud to offer up to an extra $30 million for grassroots #fairshare,” Warner tweeted.

Fast bowler Pat Cummins backed up his team mate’s stance.

“Players are as frustrated as anyone else. We want to play. Offering even more to grassroots to get a deal!!! #fairshare,” he wrote.