da bet7k： BRISBANE – Australian Cricket Board chief executive James Sutherland wastonight unable to guarantee a full-strength side would contest nextmonth’s Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka.
Wayne Heming21-Aug-2002BRISBANE – Australian Cricket Board chief executive James Sutherland wastonight unable to guarantee a full-strength side would contest nextmonth’s Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka.Sutherland and Australian Cricketers Association chief executive Tim Maymet members of the national one-day squad tonight to thrash out concernsover International Cricket Council player contracts, which have createda storm of protest around the cricketing world.The ICC wants players to sign contracts preventing them from promotingtheir individual sponsors for 30 days either side of next February’sWorld Cup in South Africa.The ICC’s new $1 billion deal with Global Cricket Corporation isconditional on countries sending their full-strength sides but alreadyIndian authorities are facing a player revolt and England’s topcricketers have been advised against signing the ICC contracts.Sutherland emerged from tonight’s meeting confident discussions wereheading in the right direction.But he could not rule out Australia sending a weakened team to Sri Lankaif some players balked at signing the controversial ICC contracts.”Ultimately that could be a possibility,” admitted Sutherland, who saidthe players who leave for a triangular series in Kenya on Monday had notbeen given any deadline to sign.”Right now our concern is dealing with the squad of players selected andto work through the issue with them.”What we need to do under the ICC agreement is deliver the best possibleteam and what we are trying to do now is work with the ACA and ourplayers to reach a situation that they are comfortable about theirrights and their rights in regard to the event and surrounding events.”May said it was impossible to speculate on what to players may decide.”We haven’t put any deadlines on them,” he said.”They got a lot of new information tonight about what the ACB and ACAhave been negotiating over the last week or so and we want the playersto have the appropriate time to consider and digest that information.”It’s too early to speculate on the outcome. They received a lot ofinformation to consider and there is a lot at stake for the players whoneed time to do that.”Sutherland admitted the players could fly out for Kenya on Mondaywithout signing the ICC contracts.”They could, but it’s not an ideal situation,” he said.”We continue to be hopeful we will resolve it before the players leave.”The ACB is yet to sign a contract to contest the Champions Trophy andSutherland said they wouldn’t until the players had made their decision.Earlier, one day captain Ricky Ponting was unable to rule out Australianplayers boycotting future international tournaments because ofcontroversial sponsorship contracts being forced upon them.And he admitted to being stumped as to how players or the ACB could getaround the ICC sponsorship contracts which have been rejected by leadingplayers around the world.”We can sit down and talk about it, but there’s really not much we cando about it,” Ponting conceded.Asked if that meant the ICC had to change it’s contract, Ponting said:”I don’t think that’s going to happen either.”I don’t think there’s any right answer to this whole thing … if therehad been, I’m sure it would have been resolved by now.”While Ponting was prepared to go into bat for his players over theirright to have individual sponsors, he was not keen on the idea of playerboycotts.”I don’t think any of the [Australian] players want a boycott, that’snot what we are all about,” he said.