We Won't Be Distracted by Pay Dispute Lanning

We Won't Be Distracted by Pay Dispute Lanning

Meg Lanning, the Australian women's captain, is confident her team will not be distracted by the lingering pay dispute ahead of the upcoming World Cup.

The Australian team will leave for the UK on Saturday (June 10) as hot favourities to win their seventh title. However, the continual pay dispute between Cricket Australia (CA) and the Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) has created an air of uncertainty with a breakthrough looking increasingly unlikely before the June 30 deadline.

The women's team has signed off on a deal ensuring it competes in the World Cup, which begins on June 26. Despite all of this, Lanning believed her team had the mental fortitude to block out the noise.

"It's definitely been spoken about. It's not something you can hide away from," she told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday (June 8). "As a squad, once we get over to the UK, we are just focused on playing cricket. Our job and priority is to go over there and play really good cricket and win games.

"We won't be distracted by it all. Everything is in place. The ACA and Cricket Australia are talking - everything is fine contract-wise," she added. "There is a temporary contract that is going to be in place for the World Cup."

In its pay proposal, CA has argued that female cricketers will be markedly better off with average annual salaries for elite players to increase from (AUD) $79,000 to $179,000, while the average pay for state-based female cricketers will rise from $22,000 to $52,000.

"It's certainly a step in the right direction. We weren't not happy with it, I guess, but ... it's a whole player agreement, and we are fully behind all players, male or female, state, international, so that's where we are at with the players," Lanning said.

However, the bone of contention revolves around CA's contentious bid to overhaul the current revenue-sharing model, which has been at the core of the Memorandum of Understanding for the past two decades. "All the players are behind a revenue-share model for all cricketers. We have been able to stay really strong and we will continue to do that," Lanning said.

Lanning declared Ellyse Perry, Australia's star all-rounder, as being '100 per cent fit' after having her home summer stymied by injuries. "Obviously, it was a pretty major injury (hamstring) she sustained in the WBBL," she said. "She has had some time to get over that. She has been in full training with the squad. She is a key member of our team."

Australia's World Cup campaign opens against the West Indies in Taunton on June 26.