The Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) has threatened that the players will boycott this month's Australia 'A' tour to South Africa, if Cricket Australia fails to take any action to resolve a bitter pay dispute between the two governing bodies by the end of this week.
Players and the ACA executive, led by president Greg Dyer and chief Alistair Nicholson, held a meeting in Sydney today to discuss their response in the absence of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the ACA and Cricket Australia.
It was decided that unless a new MoU is signed by Friday, the players-- who were selected to take part and those whose contracts have lapsed--would not be touring South Africa.
Australia A are slated to play a pair of four-day matches against South Africa A as well as a limited-overs tri-series against the Proteas' and India's A-teams.
While the Australia A four-day squad will be led by opener Usman Khawaja and features other Test players namely Glenn Maxwell, Ashton Agar and Hilton Cartwright, the limited-overs outfit will be captained by Travis Head.
Meanwhile, if a deal cannot be struck in the days to come, it will also place this winter's much anticipated Ashes series in doubt.
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Players, having central contracts and state players without multi-year deals, were left unemployed after the deadline for a new MoU was not brokered by June 30. Players are due to be paid next on July 15.
More than 200 leading cricketers are affected by the dispute between CA and the ACA.
ACA had earlier rejected the new pay offer from the game's governing body, saying the proposal will be a win for cricket administrators but a loss for the game.
In March, CA made an offer, proposing that the average pay of Australia's international women's players would rise from $A79,000 to $A179,000, while the average remuneration of state cricketers would more than double to $A52,000.
Under CA's proposal, only male international players would have the chance to share in any surplus revenue, while other domestic male players and women at both domestic and international level would have to settle for fixed amounts which would not fluctuate according to the game's income.
However, the ACA pointed out a series of concerns with the proposal, saying that it "disrespects the value of domestic cricketers and the role they play in Australian cricket".
The major reason behind the ACA's opposition is CA's proposal to scrap a shared revenue model for player payments, which has been in place for nearly 20 years.
Cricket Australia had in May threatened that players would not be paid beyond June 30, the date of expiry of their current five-year financial deal, if they don't accept the governing body's new proposed offer.