David Warner, the Australian vice-captain, has said in the light of the ongoing pay dispute between Cricket Australia and the players, an Ashes without the country’s best players is a possibility.
Last week, James Sutherland had written to the Australian Cricketers’ Association head Alistair Nicholson, stating that if CA’s terms are not accepted and adhered to, the cricketers will be left without contracts after their expiration on June 30.
“We thought something along the lines of this might happen … it’s not come as a shock, but more the fact it has come so early,” Warner was quoted as saying by The Age on Monday (May 15). “If it gets to the extreme they might not have a team for the Ashes. 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. It is up to CA to deal with the ACA [Australian Cricketers Association]. It’s obviously in their hands.”
A number of players took to social media to express their support for ACA’s stand including Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson. Warner joined them in stating rather vocally that the players will be united in their demands and in the eventuality that the players are out of a contract, he said that Twenty20 leagues around the world, like the Caribbean Premier League and England’s Twenty20 Blast for the short-term, will be their go-to to make up for the financial losses.
“We won’t buckle at all, we are standing together and very strong, and as you can see from all the people that have spoken so far, we are all on the same wavelength … we want a fair share and the revenue-sharing model is what we want, so we are going to stick together until we get that. We are not going to shy away; we are just going to stick together.
“For us as cricketers, if we don’t have contracts we are going to have to find some cricket to play somewhere else because that’s what we love doing and we’re obviously going to look to maybe do something in the meantime otherwise we don’t get paid,” Warner said. “A few boys might go over to play the Caribbean Premier League and I think there could be some of the England Twenty20s on as well. We want to keep participating for our country as much as we can, but if we don’t have a job we have to go and find some cricket elsewhere.”
Australia’s opener also rejected CA’s three-year contract, which was made to him and four others, which meant they would have to forgo the IPL, saying it was “laughable”. “It was quite laughable when I heard about it,” he said. “It is fantastic with the security but you can’t just try and stop people from playing other tournaments. We understand where they are coming from, they would like their best players and contracted players to have that rest.
“I see it as a great opportunity to play T20 cricket when they are scheduling T20 international cricket games when we are playing Test series – obviously there’s too much cricket being played internationally. [The IPL] gives us a great window to get the T20 format in,” he added.
