Former Orange District Cricket Association player of the year Chris Tremain and his Australia A side will not tour South Africa as planned, the Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) announcing the players have elected not to take part as a result of the ugly, ongoing pay dispute.
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Tremain and his squad has been training all week in Brisbane in the hope the ACA and Cricket Australia (CA) would come to an agreement, however the camp is set to be disbanded after the former party released a statement confirming the tour’s cancellation on Thursday morning.
The decision was based on a resolution passed at an ACA executive meeting last weekend, that players would not agree to tour in the absence of a new memorandum of understanding (MOU).
The pay dispute has gone on for months, leaving more than 200 cricketers nation-wide unemployed, but this is the first significant impact it’s had on Australian cricket.
Tremain was named in the squads for both the four-day and limited overs fixtures, all of which would have provided him and the likes of Glenn Maxwell and Usman Khawaja a chance to further push their international claims.
Despite that, the squad made a unified decision to stick in solidarity with their peers.
"It is with great frustration that with no progress towards resolving the current dispute, Australia A players confirm they will not tour South Africa," the ACA statement says.
"This decision is made in support of more than 200 male and female players who are now unemployed, and is consistent with Sunday’s ACA executive meeting resolutions.
"By making this call, the Australia A players have sacrificed their own ambitions for the collective; an incredibly selfless act that shows their strength and overall commitment to the group.
"All players are deeply disappointed at the behaviour of CA which forces this course of action, given the players would rather be playing for their country.
"CA refuse to attend mediation or offer any genuine flexibility in the MOU negotiations.
"And without mediation it’s hard to see how there can be the progress necessary to reach agreement.
"The players want to make sure all men and women who play the game are treated fairly, and that grassroots funding is not drained by a top-heavy bureaucracy.
"The ACA again calls on common sense to prevail and for the CA CEO to attend mediation.
"The ACA sits at the table awaiting CA’s genuine participation."
Khawaja, named as skipper, explained the 19-man squad had discussed the issue via a phone hook-up, agreeing to stand firm as Australia’s players fight for to retain the revenue-share model of payment.
That remains at the centre of the stalemate.
"It’s not an easy thing to do, individually I really want to play cricket," Khawaja said, last Sunday.
"I haven’t played cricket for a long time, and I still do (want to play) and so do all the other guys.
"But we’re very united.
"It was quite an easy phone call in the end because everyone was going in the same direction."
In a nutshell, Cricket Australia proposed a change to the player payment model that has been included in previous iterations of the MOU since its establishment in 1997, claiming the modern game requires a more flexible approach.
The ACA staunchly opposed any shift from the current model, where players receive a share of gross cricket-related revenue.
Last April they proposed an alternative, which included a reduced share of a re-defined, broader revenue pie.
That was rejected by CA and since then negotiations over a new MOU have stalled, the deadline for an agreement to be reached lapsed at midnight on June 30 – rendering more than 200 cricketers unemployed.
The female cricketers currently at the World Cup hold interim contracts.