da bet esporte： BRISBANE – One-day cricket captain Ricky Ponting was unable to rule outAustralian players boycotting future international tournaments becauseof controversial sponsorship contracts being forced upon them.
Wayne Heming21-Aug-2002BRISBANE – One-day cricket captain Ricky Ponting was unable to rule outAustralian players boycotting future international tournaments becauseof controversial sponsorship contracts being forced upon them.And he admitted he was stumped as to how players or the AustralianCricket Broad (ACB) could get around controversial International CricketCouncil sponsorship contracts which have been rejected by leadingplayers around the world.With England’s top players being pressured not to sign the ICC contractsand India’s cricket board poised to select a second-string squad after aplayer revolt, next month’s Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka appears indanger of becoming a second grade tournament.The bones of contention for players around the world are ICC contractclauses directly affecting players’ individual sponsorships.It’s a huge issue for many players, especially master batsman SachinTendulkar whose sizeable income is derived mostly from giant companiesusing his profile in cricket-mad India.”We can sit down and talk about it, but there’s really not much we cando about it,” conceded Ponting on his arrival in Brisbane today toprepare for a triangular one day tournament in Kenya as a build-up tothe Champions Trophy.Asked if that meant the ICC had to change it’s contract, Ponting said “Idon’t think that’s going to happen either.”I don’t think there’s any right answer to this whole thing … if therehad been, I’m sure it would have been resolved by now.””It’s not only the Australian players who aren’t signing these contractsit’s all around the world and the Australian players aren’t directlyaffected by it for this tournament.”It’s a world wide thing we are trying to resolve.”While Ponting was prepared to go into bat for his players over theirright to have individual sponsors, he was not keen on the idea of playerboycotts.”I don’t think any of the [Australian] players want a boycott, that’snot what we are all about,” he said.”We all want to play cricket for our country and win these tournamentsaround the world, that’s why we play the game.”As an individual I’d want to play as much cricket as I can and after along break all the guys are looking forward to playing again.”Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope it doesn’t get to that.”Ponting conceded the ICC was unlikely to give much ground because of itsnew $1 billion rights deal with Global Cricket Corporation.The deal is dependent on country’s sending full-strength sides to theChampions Trophy and next year’s World Cup in South Africa.The ICC’s contracts ban players from endorsing products of rivalcompanies for 30 days of events such as the 12-nation Champions Trophyand the World Cup.”It’s a concern and obviously something that’s been spoken about for thelast few weeks,” said Ponting.”It hasn’t really progressed too far.”We [players] have a meeting as a group with [chief executive of theAustralian Cricketers Association] Tim May today and hopefully we canget closer to it [resolution] then.”Ponting said he did not have any conflicting sponsors at next month’sChampions Trophy tournament in Sri Lanka and he didn’t know of anyteammates who did.”But I’m sure down track and for the World Cup and in future that wewill have come conflict and those are the things we will discuss at ourmeeting today.” he said.”Hopefully it can be resolved quite quickly and the [Champions Trophy]tournament goes ahead.”