The Australian Cricketers' Association executive meets 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 Cricket Australia.

CA and the players' union both confirmed they had failed to reach an agreement on a new Memorandum of Understanding before Friday's deadline, leaving players unemployed and threatening fixtures including this year's Ashes series.

The ACA likened the rancorous split in Australian cricket as the worst since the tempestuous days of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket revolution of the 1970s.

Leading fast bowler Josh Hazlewood said the breakdown in pay negotiations has left a bitter taste with the players, adding "we are, obviously, willing to do what we need to."

The players' union said it will meet on Sunday to discuss a more detailed response to the contract standoff.

Among the issues that will be canvassed will be the availability of players for the Australia A tour to South Africa to begin on July 8 and the employment rights for the more than 200 players now out of contract and unemployed as of Saturday.

ACA Chief Executive Alistair Nicholson said the union had planned for the possibility that no deal would be reached and had put in place a number of measures to deal with the associated contingencies.

Among them have been the establishment of a players' support fund to lend financial assistance to those out-of-contract men and women.

Nicholson said the availability of players for the upcoming Australia A Tour of South Africa would also be discussed at the meeting.

Hazlewood said waking up effectively unemployed on Saturday was "a different feel".

"To be contracted for the best part of 10 years, it's going to be a different stage and we'll see how it pans out," Hazlewood told Fairfax Media.

Along with the players, fixtures are also at risk including Australia's Test tour to Bangladesh from August, the one-day international series in India in September and the home Ashes series against England later this year.

CA and the players' union have hit an impasse after the board attempted to scrap the 20-year-old arrangement of giving players a fixed share of revenues, in favour of dividing surpluses amongst elite players and offering a pay rise.

Following the missed deadline, players who are on multi-year contracts that go beyond June 30 will continue to be paid, and will be required to play and train as before.

What they said

Alongside a picture playing golf: "Even though we're now unemployed, I thought it would be a good idea to keep working on my slog…"

- Glen Maxwellc

I may be unemployed but I still have the support and backing from this amazing lady [his wife]. Family is everything to me. I thought the same about my old workplace but I guess I was wrong.

Thanks to our fans for all your support. You can now see first hand  what we have to deal with. #fairshare

- David Warner

Alongside a picture of him looking for a job on Seek: "Just checking my options... #seek #unemployed #imavailable"

- Usman Khawaja