Cricket Australia pay dispute: From skydiving to new jobs, David Warner and Co prepare for unemployment

It was an unusual Saturday morning for Australian cricketers as they woke up to the realisation that they no longer had a Cricket Australia contract. On Saturday, CA had announced that it had failed to strike a new pay deal with the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) ahead of the 30 June deadline, leaving more than 200 cricketers from the country unemployed. To make it worse, they also threatened to bar the players from appearing in forthcoming fixtures of the national team, including this year’s Ashes series.

Members of the Australian cricket team took to various social media platforms to express their feelings. However, the likes of David Warner, Glenn Maxwell and Usman Khawaja tried to make light of their current predicament.

Glenn Maxwell posted a video on Instagram of him practicing a golf swing.

Meanwhile, Warner, in an emotional note wrote, “I may be unemployed but I still have the support and backing from this amazing lady. Family is everything to me. I thought the same about my old workplace but I guess I was wrong. #thebull #fairshare.”

Warner also replied to Maxwell’s post on Twitter by saying that now he could do his first skydive.

I can do my first skydive this weekend woohooo 👍👍 @Gmaxi_32 https://t.co/UQVSer6TyJ

— David Warner (@davidwarner31) July 1, 2017

Earlier, off spinner Usman Khawaja shared a photo of him browsing a job website. 

On Friday, Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) released a video where Josh Hazlewood said waking up effectively unemployed on Saturday was “going to be a different feeling”. “To be contracted for the best part of 10 years, nearly for me, it’s going to be a different stage and we’ll see how it pans out,” he said.

Josh Hazlewood shares thoughts around MOU negotiations with Simon Katich.

Download full media version: https://t.co/fpRXWW5NJG #fairshare pic.twitter.com/p0w0OnZfox

— Australian Cricketers' Association (@ACA_Players) June 30, 2017

According to reports in Australia, the ACA will meet on Sunday to decide whether players will boycott this month’s Australia ‘A’ tour to South Africa after a failure to strike a new pay deal with the board. The players’ union also said it will meet in Sydney to discuss a more detailed response to the contract standoff.