Australia's Test tour of Bangladesh likely to proceed as plan
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Dhaka: Australia's tour to Bangladesh to play two Test matches in August-September is likely to see the light as the Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) and Cricket Australia (CA) started their week-long meeting to resolve the pay dispute in Melbourne on Friday.
"Hopes of an imminent resolution to Australian cricket's industrial relations stalemate continue to grow with a further round of meetings completed today and the prospect of talks continuing across the weekend," reports Cricket Australia's official website.
Australia's proposed two-Test tour to Bangladesh, which is scheduled to begin in the next month, will proceed as planned, if CA and ACA agree to sign a new five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of payment.
In addition to regular meetings between the two parties' negotiating teams, direct communication has been being maintained between the organisations' respective chief executives, James Sutherland (CA) and Alistair Nicholson (ACA).
Earlier on Friday, News Corp Australia reported that the ACA had also withdrawn their call for an independent mediator to be appointed to the process, further indicating that a truce had been brokered in the months-long impasse.
However, to resolve the pay dispute players gave the CA three weeks, before decision on Bangladesh tour, after an emergency meeting held by the ACA executive and attended by a number of senior players earlier this month where it was announced that none of the 300 or so professional cricketers in Australia would take part in matches organised by CA until a new MOU is signed.
As a result of that resolution, the players withdrew themselves from the scheduled month-long Australia A tour to South Africa that was to act as a selection trial for the vacant pace bowler's berth on the Bangladesh tour as well.
Around 230 of those players fell out of contract and therefore became unemployed when the previous MOU expired on June 30.