South African franchises look to snap Australia players while pay deal slowly falls apart

South African franchises are all set to showcase their deep pockets as they look to snap top Australia players for the upcoming Global Destination League. While Cricket Australia remains adamant about abolishing the current revenue share model, some Australian cricketers have issued an indirect warning to the board saying that things could completely fall apart.

If CA fails to strike a deal with its players by June 30, they would essentially become free agents, who would then be contracted on a series-by-series basis. As a result, the cash-rich South African franchises will take their chances to lure some of Australia’s best cricketers to come and enthral the Rainbow Nation in the Global Destination League.

A clash with the Ashes

While South Africa is scheduled to host the brand new T20 league in November, the Ashes series is also supposed to begin in the same month at the Gabba. Although it’s quite implausible that Australia would lose its top cricketers to a T20 tournament, David Warner made it quite clear that players could go to unthinkable lengths if CA stands their ground. Meanwhile, the South African franchises are monitoring the developments closely in their own interests.

“Everybody is watching the dispute in Australia with concern and nobody wants to see an ugly, damaging player strike. But if Australia’s best players were unemployed by the time South Africa’s new franchises are finalising their 17-man squads, you’d be mad to think they wouldn’t be interested,” a source close to one of the eight prospective South African franchises said.

“Cricket South Africa is playing catch-up to establish their competition and if they can do that with some of the BBL’s biggest stars, I’m sure that would happen,” he added.

Nevertheless, a scenario of Australian cricketers heading to South Africa still looks a bit far-fetched. Australian players would not sign with any prospective Twenty20 franchises unless they were certain it wouldn’t have an impact on the Australian Cricketers Association’s position in negotiations with CA.

Moreover, the other possibility is that the current Memorandum of Understanding is extended or players are offered temporary contracts while negotiations in the pay dispute continue.

The gravity of impending ramifications 

Senior Australian player-manager Neil Maxwell, however, went on to warn one and all the ramifications of a drastic decision on CA’s part.

“This has ramifications not only for Australian cricket but world cricket because you are going to have players out of contract who can play anywhere they want and set up their own matches,” Maxwell said. It is dangerous. Steve Smith and others will be free to walk into India, anywhere, and play a game, and in any sort of league,” Maxwell told London’s Sunday Times.

“If I wanted to put on a match in New York, I could just go and get the Australian squad. Any entrepreneur with money will be looking at this with interest … (he) could contract 24 Australian players and play a game on July 1. Any news agency that wanted their image rights or a bank or conflicting sponsor, could just start signing cricketers. Blokes could go and sign five-year deals with a competitor,” he concluded.