Marnus Labuschagne wins contract; CA fails to convince on cash crisis

Cricket Australia has opened its books to the players but failed to convince them there is a cash crisis.

Marnus Labuschagne’s incredible arrival on the international scene has earned him a central contract from Cricket Australia. Picture: Getty Images

Cricket Australia has opened its books to the players but failed to convince them there is a cash crisis on the day 35 male and female players were granted national contracts.

Marnus Labuschagne, Matthew Wade and Mitchell Marsh are three who made the cut despite missing out last year, while Usman Khawaja and Marcus Stoinis were among those who fell off the list.

Chief executive Kevin Roberts has faced an uphill battle to persuade stakeholders that the game is facing a cash crisis. Staff were left seething when about 200 were asked to stand down and accept an 80 per cent pay cut two weeks ago, and Roberts made a profuse apology to those who tuned into his video address on Wednesday over the way he handled the situation.

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Both players and states have been waiting on detailed financial information from Cricket Australia. The ACA concludes from what it has seen that the situation is not as bad as it has been painted.

“We have been seeking financial information from CA regarding CA’s forecast revenues, cashflow and cashflow facility,” player relations manager Brendan Drew told players in an email obtained by The Australian.

“We have received some information and have sought more which we expect to receive in the next few days. The ACA’s board will convene to consider this information next week and provide advice to CA and our members.

“From our assessment to date, we remain optimistic that the game is in a good financial position and has many attributes and benefits that other sports have not enjoyed. As a non-contact sport, cricket should be at the forefront of creative efforts to get back up and running.”

Cricket Victoria, which was in financial trouble before the pandemic, began laying off staff on Thursday but refused to confirm the scale of the cuts — rumoured to include up to half the staff — when contacted by The Australian.

Khawaja, Stoinis, Shaun Marsh, Marcus Harris, Peter Handscomb and Nathan Coulter-Nile were all informed on Thursday night they would not be receiving contracts for 2020-21 after being on the list in the previous year.

“Ussie was a difficult one for us, probably the hardest one,” chief selector Trevor Hohns said. “He was ranked in two of the three forms of the game and unfortunately just fell out the bottom of the list.

“We know Usman’s a fabulous player and I don’t have any doubt he’ll accept the challenge going forward to get back into that Australian side.

“Unfortunately the last 12 months haven’t been his best.”

The big winner this year is Labuschagne, who did not make last year’s initial contract list but won an upgrade when selected for the Lord’s Test as concussion substitute for Steve Smith.

“He’s been a revelation and he deserves all the accolades he gets because he’s one of those players that work so hard, he’s probably one of the hardest workers in that group, but he’s dragging others along with him,” Hohns said.

“He’s had a massive influence in that area as well, as far as work ethic etc goes. He deserves what he gets, Marnus.”

Ashton Agar, Joe Burns, Mitchell Marsh, Kane Richardson and Matthew Wade were also six added to the list.

“Mitch Marsh, he wasn’t in the contract list last year, as we all know,” Hohns said. “He’s had a little bit of a resurgence. We saw the last Test match in England in the Ashes series he took a five-wicket haul and in the last game he played — a one-day game for Australia before the unfortunate virus had taken hold of everything — he gave us a man-of-the-match performance.”

Stoinis, the one-day player of the year in 2019-20, was unlucky to miss out given his T20 form and the approaching T20 World Cup, should it go ahead.

“You have to look at Marcus as a top-order player in T20 cricket,” Hohns said. “He’s operating at the top of the order where it’s a congested and competitive field up there with Warner, Finch, Smith, and Maxwell is a top-order player in T20 cricket.

“Obviously he’s always high in our thoughts and ranked reasonably well in T20 cricket but the other forms of the game let him down. He wants to play long-form cricket for Australia, he wants to play one-day cricket, as all players do. It comes back to performance in those forms of the game, it comes back to scoring hundreds particularly in the longest form of the game.”