Federal sports minister Greg Hunt has offered to intervene in cricket's pay stoush in a week when the Cricket Australia board will meet and decide whether to remain militant or consider bending to the players' calls.
CA has made its stance clear in what has become an ugly fight with players over how more than $500 million in payments due to players over the next five years should be spent. The bottom line is that CA only wants centrally-contracted male and female players to share in the set percentage model when it comes to surplus funds, with state-based cricketers to be paid now fully from a set pool.
Players remain united in their stand, and have called for mediation, with the June 30 deadline for a new memorandum of understanding looming large. CA maintains it is not interested in mediation, prompting Hunt on Sunday to declare the Federal government would be willing to help broker a deal at a time when the next four series of Australia's male players - an "A" tour of South Africa, a Test series in Bangladesh, a one-day series in India and the sport's showcase event, the Ashes - are in doubt.
"If it got to a last-minute situation, I suspect that we would offer to provide good officers brokering between the parties but there's six months between now and the Ashes," Hunt said on the ABC's Insiders.
"It would be unthinkable that in the end we wouldn't have a full team. I do not see either the players or the administration returning to the late '70s where we had a second-rate team. The players love playing for Australia, Cricket Australia knows this is not just fundamental to sport, it is part of our national identity. I'm very confident they will reach an agreement."
However, CA's reasoning for altering the percentage-model system, which, as Fairfax Media reported on Sunday, it cites as breeding "mistrust" and even "damages" the sport, means a new deal is still a long way off.
CA says grassroots cricket will suffer from a lack of resources should the current model remain. The ACA says its plan will benefit community cricket.
Amid the acrimony, CA chief executive James Sutherland will front a directors meeting in Brisbane on Saturday where CA has two options - maintain its approach, with claims it wants players to be more like employees than partners in the game - or agree to mediation and/or open discussions with the Australian Cricketers Association.
ACA chief Alistair Nicholson was due to meet with Australia's Champions Trophy squad in England over the weekend. The ACA maintains CA's plan highlights "its self-serving-and-flawed logic".
"It ignores the fact that the players are the revenue generators. No players, no revenue," an ACA spokesman said.
"It's a good window into CA's thinking because its shows the disrespectful way they think about the players."
The ACA has drafted in unionist and former Labor politician Greg Combet to help its cause, and has begun to make plans, such as establishing an image-rights company, should there be a lock-out.
"I'm completely relaxed about it. I actually know Greg Combet well. Whilst we've disagreed on different things in the past, I think he's fundamentally a person of good sense and integrity," Hunt said.
"This is a pay dispute between a very well-resourced organisation and very highly paid players. They'll work it out."
