New Delhi: The ongoing pay dispute controversy in Australian Cricket is not looking to end anytime soon as tensions flared again on Thursday as Vice-captain David Warner accused Cricket Australia of wrongly blaming players for not resolving the ongoing pay dispute saga.
Warner posted a photo of himself in his Test kit on late Thursday night with the caption reading, “This Baggy Green (cap) means the world to me."
He further added on the issue saying, "I and all the other players, female and male, want to get out there and play.”
"We offered Aus$30 million ($24 million) of our money to grassroots as a peace plan. It was ignored. We asked for mediation twice before and it was rejected. Now CA says there is a crisis.
"The players are unemployed and some are hurting financially but continue to train. Administrators are still being paid. How is it our fault no deal is done?"
CA chief executive James Sutherland added a new spark to the controversy when he said if intensive talks over the next few days produced a compromise, his organisation would seek the intervention of an industrial umpire to resolve the issue.
"We feel that what has been proposed actually jeopardizes not only the Bangladesh tour but in turn the Indian tour that is upcoming and beyond that even - dare I say it - the Ashes tour," Sutherland said Thursday.
"We have concerns that the urgency at our end is not being reciprocated at the other side and that's why we can hopefully bring the matter to resolution and failing that an independent arbitrator to come in, make a decision and we accept the umpire's decision."
The Australian Cricketers' Association have blamed CA for further dragging the crisis and that it had "lost the players" through its hardball tactics.
After months of negotiations, the players and CA have failed to reach agreement, leaving 230 cricketers unemployed since the end of June when their contracts expired.
Australia are scheduled to play in Bangladesh with the first Test due to start on August 22, followed by a one-day tour to India in September and October, ahead of the showpiece home Ashes series, beginning in November.