Aussie players irked with CA for reprimanding Hayden, feel the Board is not backing its own team.

Vijay Tagore

Sydney: The growing tension between Indian and Australian players has taken a different turn, with the home cricketers and their union blasting Cricket Australia for succumbing to the pressure of the Indian board.

The Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) condemned the CA’s decision, stating it was not protecting its players’ interests enough. The frustrated players are already angry that the CA didn’t back Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds during the Harbhajan Singh hearing. Now they are furious that the CA went to the extent of conducting a disciplinary hearing against Matthew Hayden at the behest of the BCCI. Hayden had called Harbhajan an “obnoxious little weed”.

According to a report in The Australian, there could be a civil war between the players and the establishment. ACA president Darren Lehmann said in no uncertain terms that his association is disappointed and unhappy with the CA. “We’ll take up the matter with them,” Lehmann said.

CA’s media manager Peter Young confirmed that they have differences with the players over a range of issues. “We have had heated arguments over some issues but our relations with the players are fine,” Young said, denying that the CA had failed to back its players."

Young said the action against Hayden was necessitated to maintain the sanctity of the CA’s disciplinary code: “Our CEO James Sutherland has already maintained that even if Hayden had used such words against a junior state level player, he still would have attracted a similar punishment.”

He, however, hoped that the best-of-three finals, starting at the SCG on Sunday night, would be highly competitive. “I hope neither party backs off. They are both competitive teams and I expect a highly competitive final,” he said.

The BCCI, on its part, said it has asked Indian players to keep their emotions under control during the finals. Harbhajan Singh, in particular, has been asked not to make any comments in the media.

Source : DNA