Warner threatens Ashes strike as CA pay dispute turns nasty

DAVID Warner has urged Cricket Australia to meet the players’ wage demands or risk having no team for the 2017 Ashes series.

The Australian Cricketers’ Association is lobbying for a new payment structure that would see national representatives earn a fixed percentage of CA revenue.

Things took an alarming turn last Friday when CA chief executive James Sutherland wrote a letter to all contracted male and female players warning that they would not be offered new deals if they refused to agree to the terms laid out in the current memorandum of understanding, which expires on June 30, 2017.

“In the absence of the ACA negotiating a new MoU, players with contracts expiring in 2016-17 will not have contracts for 2017-18,” he wrote.

“Players with existing multi-year State or BBL contracts that expire after 2017 will be required to play in 2017-18 and will be paid the retainer specified in their contract, regardless of whether a new MOU is in place; and in the absence of a new MoU, the Australian Women’s World Cup Squad will be paid in advance of the June/July World Cup and will be employed until the end of the event.

“To be very clear, in the absence of a new MoU, CA is not contemplating alternative contracting arrangements to pay players beyond 30 June if their contracts have expired.”

But Warner has called Sutherland’s bluff, declaring that players would not be bullied into accepting substandard terms.

“If it gets to the extreme, they might not have a team for the Ashes,” Australia’s outspoken vice-captain told Fairfax media.

“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, we don’t have cricket in the Australian summer.

“It is up to CA to deal with the ACA. It’s obviously in their hands.”

Should the two parties fail to reach an agreement in the coming weeks, the CA could be left with no contracted players for England’s scheduled visit this summer.

Warner said the Australian players were prepared to take any industrial action necessary, even at the expense of Test cricket’s most celebrated series.

“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,” he continued.

“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 and are sticking together.

“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.”

Warner, who captains Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League, also suggested that more Australian players would turn to domestic Twenty20 leagues if the pay dispute was not resolved soon.

That news will no doubt have caught the attention of franchise bosses in the Caribbean Premier League and England’s T20 Blast, both of which are scheduled to commence around the time of CA’s contract deadline.

“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 ODI squad will head to the UK later this month to prepare for the ICC Champions Trophy, which runs from June 1 to June 18.

Online bookmaker Sportsbet.com.au has the Aussies and England pegged as joint +300 favourites for the title.

2017 ICC Champions Trophy odds

+300 – Australia, England

+350 – South Africa

+450 – India

+800 – New Zealand

+1400 – Pakistan

+2000 – Sri Lanka

+3300 – Bangladesh

2017 Ashes outright betting

-149.25 – Australia

+550 – Draw

+200 – England

Markets provided by Sportsbet.com.au