Former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist believes the pay dispute that has brought the Australian men’s cricket team to a standstill will be over within a week.
With the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) and Cricket Australia (CA) unable to come to an agreement over a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), 230 Australian cricket players – including all of the Test, ODI and T20 national teams – have been out of a job since the beginning of July.
The debate bubbles down to the model of the understanding. The ACA want to keep the revenue-sharing model, while CA wanted to move to a fixed wage model with neither side prepared to budge.
Attention has begun to switch from the MOU to which future tours could be affected, with an ‘A’tour of South Africa already cancelled. Next on the slate is Australia’s tour of Bangladesh, to be played in August, with a seven-match ODI tour of India and a home Ashes series to follow.
England have already said they will not tour for the Ashes if there is no new MOU in place, and the summer appeared to be hanging by a thread with CA standing to lose plenty over both the Ashes and the Indian tour.
However, Gilchrist, a veteran of 96 Tests and 287 ODIs told Fox Sports’Back Page Live that he believes with CA CEO James Sutherland now at the table, a quick end should come of the pay dispute.
“I think within a week,” said Gilchrist.
“James Sutherland, the CEO of Cricket Australia, is finally at the table and I believe things are progressing, and I hope and I believe within a week we’ll have something to celebrate.”
That would be a blessing for CA, who have been locked in discussions since last December.
Sutherland had previously refused to become involved in negotiations, leaving it to former Rio Tinto CEO David Peever and CA’s head of strategy Ken Roberts, who was an executive at Adidas, to lead the way.
With things reaching breaking point though, Sutherland had no choice but to come to the table.
While Gilchrist feels the pay dispute will be resolved shortly, former Australian opening batsman Ed Cowan, who himself played 18 Tests and 115 first class games, wasn’t ready to jump to the same conclusion.
“I think Gilly’s slightly premature on that. I can’t see an even in-principle agreement getting done in the next week,” said Cowan on Fox Sports’ Bill and Boz programme.
“The good news is that both parties are in the room and they’re talking and things are moving forward.
“I think Gilly’s a bit bullish. I think we’ll see some more movement, and it might be two weeks let’s say.
“Having said that, Gilly usually gets some pretty good mail so let’s hope so.”
It’s understood that both parties are back at the table today, with the model of payment still the main sticking point.
Yashasvi Jaiswal was looking comfortable at 67 off 40, until this moment when he hit the ball into his own stumps!
The Aussie made his 50 off 37 balls, for his fourth half-century of the season as his Sunrisers Hyderabad went on to beat Rajasthan…
Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. This quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but nobody knows if he…
This series’ twelfth and final team has a distinct West Indian flavour at the top of the order, and a domineering captain.
Mitch Marsh has been appointed as Australia's men's Twenty20 captain, set to lead a squad to the World Cup that does not include Steve…
Australia are set to turn their back on rising star Jake Fraser-McGurk’s whirlwind IPL form and drop Steve Smith in their T20 World Cup…
