Daily Times

SYDNEY: Australia’s cricketers will not back down in a bitter pay dispute, David Warner has warned amid fears their October tour of India is looming as a flashpoint. As the June 30 deadline for a new memorandum of understanding between Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association fast approaches, the Australia vice-captain insisted players won’t budge on their demands. “Well from July 1, we’re unemployed,” Warner told Channel Nine late Sunday. “We’ve been threatened with that. We’re hopeful there’s going to be an agreement done, it’s a sticky situation.”

CA has threatened not to pay contracted players beyond the expiry of their current financial deal at the end of the month if they do not accept a new offer, with the governing body determined to scrap revenue-sharing after 20 years. With a Test squad for an August tour of Bangladesh named last week, Warner was adamant that a lockout was possible. “From our point of view I want to play for Australia and so do the other boys,” he said. “But if there’s nothing that’s put in place for what we’re trying to achieve here, from both point of views, we’re not going to tour Bangladesh, there might not be an Ashes if we don’t have an MOU.”

Published in Daily Times, June 20th, 2017