Report of done deal 'premature': CA, ACA

The likelihood of Australia's cricketers being back on the field for upcoming series against Bangladesh, India and England has risen amid speculation that an agreement on the protracted pay dispute could be reached within days.

While Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers' Association both described media reports this evening that a deal on a new Memorandum of Understanding could be announced tomorrow as "premature", it is understood intensive negotiations between the two parties continue to progress.

Representatives of CA and the ACA remained locked in talks in Melbourne, having been involved in exhaustive discussions over the weekend that did not wind up until past midnight on Sunday.

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News Corp Australia reported this evening that agreement had been reached on the key points of difference that have seen the parties at loggerheads for the past nine months, but sources confirmed that talks remained ongoing tonight and that no formal announcements had been scheduled.

"Good progress is being made with the ACA but we will not comment on details of the negotiation, nor will we enter into any media speculation on the negotiation," a CA spokesperson said last night.

A spokesman for the ACA also described reports that a resolution had been reached as "premature" and declined to comment further on the negotiations.

According to the unconfirmed News Corp report, agreement had been struck on a form of revised revenue share under which the players would be paid and that a deal had also been reached to provide players who have been out of contract and therefore unemployed and unpaid since June 30 with some measure of back pay.

However, those details could not be confirmed tonight with both parties indicating their priority remained the fruitful resolution of discussions that began in their current intensive format last Friday.

That came after CA Chief Executive James Sutherland told a media conference last week that a "hard deadline" needed to be imposed on the talks to try and bring about a resolution to the nine-month stalemate.

Sutherland said last Thursday that if a heads of agreement on a new MOU could not be reached "by early next week" then the unresolved issues should be sent to independent, mutually agreed arbitration.

That move would allow around 230 men's and women's players currently unemployed in the absence of an MOU to be immediately re-signed on short-term contracts and return to the playing field.

The effect of that being the next looming international playing commitment – the men's scheduled two-Test tour to Bangladesh due to get underway next month – would be able to proceed as planned.

Australia's ODI team is then scheduled to play a series in India against the host nation in October, with the five-Test Ashes battle that begins at the Gabba in Brisbane on November 23.

The ACA released a statement over the weekend outlining its concerns about an arbitration process, but both parties claimed their priority was to resolve the matter through negotiations that are expected to resume tomorrow morning.

The two-Test Bangladesh series, which is due to begin with a tour match in Dhaka on August 22, was in jeopardy when the ACA announced earlier this month that no players would be available for matches organised by CA until a new MOU was signed.

While it is expected that the significant detail in a MOU to cover the next five years - which extends to around 700 pages – will take some time to work through, it is hoped an in-principle agreement between the parties will clear the path for that tour and other upcoming series.

It was announced last June, when the national selection panel named a 13-man squad for the two-Test Bangladesh series, that the players would convene in Darwin on August 10 for a training camp before flying to Dhaka on August 18.

The 14th berth in that squad, as a replacement for fast bowler Mitchell Starc who continues his recovery from a foot fracture, was to have been decided by performances during the scheduled tour of South Africa by an Australia A team.

However, that tour was cancelled when the players voted not to take part in the absence of a new MOU and a decision on the additional member of the squad is expected to be made by selectors when the Bangladesh series is formally confirmed.