Australia’s pace spearhead Mitchell Starc has insisted that the Australian players are firmly behind the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) over the ongoing pay dispute with Cricket Australia.
With nothing concrete panning out over the dispute between the players and the board, Alistair Nicholson, the ACA chief executive, met with the Australian squad on Sunday (May 28) in Birmingham to update them on the current situation.
Earlier this month, Cricket Australia had 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 which abolishes the revenue-share arrangement that the players have enjoyed for the last 20 years. However, the players are not ready to throw in the towel yet and are keen to fight for their demands. The ongoing tussle, meanwhile, has left Australia’s proposed tour of Bangladesh in August and the Ashes in jeopardy.
“Our full support is still behind the ACA to get the outcome the players are after,” Starc said. “It’s not about asking for more. It’s a fair share and both the men and women are together and on the same page and that was the conversation we had today.”
Starc, who has not shied away from expressing his views on the matter, further expressed his uncertainty over whether the concerned parties can strike a deal before the June 30 deadline.
“They have four weeks to go on the MoU and the players are leaving it to the ACA to sort it out for our side of things,” he said. “He (Nicholson) just told us where things are going to at the moment and we’ll stick with everything else in-house.
“I guess we’ll find out (whether or not there will a resolution) in four weeks’ time,” he added.
Starc, who is returning to the game after remaining on the sidelines for around a couple of months owing to a foot injury that he sustained in March during the Test series in Indian, is confident of getting back to his best in the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy.
“I’m pretty confident with how it’s going, it’s feeling good in the nets and with the few centre wickets we’ve had,” he said.
“It’s been a while (since my last match). I’ve had plenty of time in the nets and up in Brisbane, but it’ll be nice to get out in the middle and bowl some overs in match-like conditions,” he added.
The left-arm pacer further added that he was excited about potentially teaming up with fellow Pacers Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and James Pattinson and said that all the bowlers are looking forward to doing well in the tournament.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully playing a few games together if the four of us get picked,” he said. “But it’s great to have the four of us fit. Even if there’s only three of us playing, we’ve got one on the side ready to go.
“We’ve all performed for Australia before and we’re looking forward in this tournament to performing again,” he added.
Australia will begin their Champions Trophy campaign on June 2 against New Zealand.