Cricket and the law: ball tampering, contracts and Enterprise Bargaining Agreements

Cricket in Australia has faces two recent crises, the first being the prolonged enterprise negotiations between Cricket Australia (CA) and the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) that resulted in a situation where, for a few months, CA had no contracted players. This meant that during this period CA had no players to fulfill its broadcasting obligations. When the matter was finally resolved it was very much in the favour of the players as CA backed down on its position of not wanting to use the revenue sharing model. It is suggested this highlights that it is the players who now hold the greater bargaining power when it comes to negotiations with CA, The second crisis was the ball tampering incident in South Africa with three players being banned by CA from playing first-class cricket in Australia for up to twelve months. It is suggested that given the severity of the incident ant its late season timing, the penalties were reasonable and therefore legal under the terms of the players' contracts