Clarke urges cricketers to accept arbitration proposal

Former Australia captain Michael Clarke believes that the pay dispute between Cricket Australia (CA) and the cricketers is headed towards arbitration and the players should accept short terms deals while the negotiations are sorted out.

According to Cricket Australia site report, Clarke has deemed that the players' union would be "silly" to reject the prospect of arbitration to deliver an outcome if an in-principle agreement on terms for a new MOU can't be reached in coming days.

The Australian Cricketers’ Association had voiced their concern regarding arbitration, saying arbitration is an adversarial process more akin to a court room. The ACA believes that mediation would have been the right way to seek resolution to the dispute.

"As a (former) player, I'm saying if a deal's not done by Monday afternoon allow it go to arbitration because we need this finalised," Clarke told Channel Nine's Sports Sunday program today.

"I believe this is definitely going to arbitration, and I think the ACA would be silly to say no to it.

"The players can't say no, the players have got to say yes because they’ve got to play.

"This team cannot afford to miss one game of cricket if we want to beat England in the Ashes.

"We need to go to Bangladesh (next month), we need to go to India for the ODIs (in October), and then we need to play our best cricket to beat England in Australia, which I believe we will if we've played some cricket together as a team.

"The players are not CEO of a business or general manager of a business. That's not their responsibility.

"This needs to be done between CA and the players' association, and the players need to do what (they) know best and that's to play this game we love."

"As a player, I never felt like I was a partner in the business.

"I never went to James Sutherland and had a conversation about where we were spending the (money).

"I thought my job and my responsibility as a player was to do my job as captain, help the team have success on the field and then you share in the wealth.

"I always saw my role as an (employee) to Cricket Australia. They pay me to play cricket for Australia.

"But I think what the revenue share model does is allow the players' association, not necessarily the individual player, to have that conversation with Cricket Australia and discuss where this business is going."