It's out, brothers, out

West Indies to South Africa 1998-99
The start of a decade of acrimony between players and board. A pay dispute meant that half the side were locked in discussions with West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) officials at a hotel next to London's Heathrow Airport where they had stopped off en route to Johannesburg. The other half, who had already arrived in South Africa, promptly flew back to England to present a united front. The WICB sacked Brian Lara and Carl Hooper, the captain and vice-captain, only to reinstate them, and as Wisden noted, "the junior players found themselves dragged into a dispute in which the seniors were largely seeking a pay increase for themselves". Eventually the wounds were patched over and a far-from-happy side went on their way. Unsurprisingly they were whitewashed 0-5 on their first official tour of South Africa. Lara admitted after the fifth Test that "we are not together as a team". Some understatement.

Australia to England 1912
As rows go, this one was a humdinger. It was all about control of the team, and more importantly, the finances. Although the Australians were nominally amateurs, they were all well paid for playing and the newly formed ACB wanted to seize control of the large sums a tour of England generated. At a meeting of the selectors ahead of the fourth Test at Sydney in February 1912, Clem Hill, Australia's captain, came to blows with a colleague, Peter McAllister. The end result was that the board won through and six leading players - Hill, Warwick Armstrong, Victor Trumper, Tibby Cotter, Hanson Carter and Vernon Ransford - refused to tour. A disunited rabble arrived in England under a manager few of them wanted, and the tour was dogged by reports of bad language, poor manners and heavy drinking. Even the usually conservative Wisden was taken to observe that "some of the players were not satisfied with Crouch as manager", while adding he claimed some of the team had behaved so badly that the side was "socially ostracised". It was hardly surprising that the Australians' income from the tour was 40 per cent down on their previous trip in 1909.

India, World Cup, 2003
The 2003 World Cup was the first where commercial interests were to the fore, and in the build-up to the tournament it became clear that deals the ICC had signed with official sponsors clashed with those agreed by individual boards and players. Some boards threatened to sue the ICC for damages for failing to fulfill contractual commitments, while the most serious argument was between the Indian board and its players. The board had signed an agreement with the ICC but had not taken into account that its own players had separate - and conflicting - endorsements of their own. A compromise was agreed a month before the start, clearing the way for India to participate, but the truce was fragile and the matter would not go away. Even when the World Cup started, the ICC felt it necessary to warn India's players that they faced "severe action if advertisements involving them and flouting the ambush marketing clause continued". The debate lasted even longer than the drawn-out competition itself.

Kenya v Namibia, Intercontinental Cup, 2005
In October 2004, a feud between the Kenyan Cricket Association and the national team - who were still owed money from the World Cup 18 months earlier - came to a head when almost the entire squad walked out on the eve of a match against Namibia. It wasn't the first time this had been threatened: in April 2003, less than a fortnight after they appeared in the World Cup semi-finals, the Kenyans clashed with the KCA and almost boycotted a one-day tournament in Sharjah. A strike was averted after a private donor paid the players. In 2004, though, Kenya's selectors responded by calling up most of the Under-19 side plus a few fringe players for the game. On the first day many of the strikers turned up to barrack their replacements, and on days two and three they reportedly paid for some rent-a-mobbers to do it on their behalf. The hastily arranged XI drew and so qualified for the semi-finals ... but there the dream ended as Scotland cut their bowling to shreds. The strike only ended with the toppling of the old board the following year.

Pakistan v England 1977-78
This series took place against the backdrop of World Series Cricket and a increasing disagreement on how to handle those who had signed up with Kerry Packer. The first two Tests were drawn, and as the third and deciding Test approached it emerged that the PCB had contacted its rebels - Majid Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan, and Mushtaq Mohammad - and invited them home. The national selectors were surprised, other Pakistan players were angry, England were fuming. Confusion reigned as the PCB refused to say whether it had asked them back, and at a practice session which included the main Pakistan squad and the returned rebels, the atmosphere was strained. England issued a statement making clear their opposition to WSC players being picked, and eventually the PCB backed down. Had it not, it is not clear whether the Test would have been played, but almost certainly some of the England side would have boycotted it.

Australia v England 1884-85
The Australians, amateurs in status but anything but in reality, demanded 50 per cent of the gate receipts from the second Test at the MCG, but the authorities refused and named a completely new XI for the match - nine were making their debut and for five of the side it was to be their only Test appearance. Unsurprisingly, England won by ten wickets and by the time the sides met again, Australia were back to almost full strength.

Bolshiness seemed almost endemic on the tour. Billy Barnes, England's great allrounder, refused to bowl in the third Test after a row with his captain, while in the final Test, George Hodges, the umpire, declined to resume after tea on the third day after England had moaned once too often about his decisions. Tom Garrett, one of the Australian XI who had already batted twice, stood in for him. It was to be Hodges' only Test.

Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka 2004
The real start of the player-board battle. Until this point, individuals had turned their backs in dribs and drabs, but after Heath Streak was sacked, ostensibly for playing reasons, almost all the Zimbabwe side went on strike. Publicly, the board did all it could to settle the dispute, but behind the scenes the hardliners were delighted to be rid of many of those who refused to play. The grins were wiped off their faces when Sri Lanka trounced a makeshift and virtually teenage side in a series described by Wisden as "a travesty of international cricket from beginning to end". Sri Lanka won both Tests by an innings - scoring 713 for 3 at Bulawayo - and then bowled Zimbabwe out for 35 in one of the ODIs. One felt for the desperately keen but utterly outclassed Zimbabweans. The ICC, meanwhile, sat firmly on the sidelines until it became clear that something had to be done. As it was, the Zimbabwe board moved first, suspending its side from Test cricket.

West Indies to Sri Lanka 2005
A bitter row over sponsorship, which had started the year before, led to ten of the original 13-man squad - Lara, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan among them - withdrawing. The board named replacements, all but two of whom were in the A-team side which happened coincidentally to already be in Sri Lanka, only for them to sign a declaration backing their team-mates. Six subsequently changed their minds and joined the senior squad. Lindel Wright, the A-team's manager, revealed that his players were on the brink of abandoning their tour at one stage; there were also reports of a dressing-room bust-up during the second A-team Test. The series went ahead, much to the relief of the cash-strapped West Indies board who feared an ICC fine if it didn't.

England v Australia 1896
Five England professionals - Bobby Abel, Tom Hayward, George Lohmann, Tom Richardson and William Gunn - went on strike on the eve of the Oval Test over the amateur status of players like WG Grace, who earned far more than they did in inflated expenses payments. The five wanted £20 instead of the normal £10, but Surrey, who ran the Test on their home ground, stood firm. Abel, Hayward and Richardson backed down on the morning of the match, but Gunn and Lohmann refused to play.

Nottinghamshire 1881
The tranquil world of the county circuit was anything but in 1881 when seven Nottinghamshire professionals fell out with their committee. They had been asked to sign a contract agreeing to make themselves available for every match, and refused - playing in other games was, at the time, a widely accepted feature of the day. The standoff rumbled on for much of the summer as Nottinghamshire fielded a virtual 2nd XI. Captain Holden, the county's confrontational secretary, asked the MCC to intervene, which they did to good effect, and the rebels agreed to return, only for Holden to leave two of them out the side, resulting in all seven again withdrawing their labour. The strike slowly petered out, but did not end until May 1882, when the last two professionals apologised to the county.

Australia at home 1997-98
Hard to believe, but Australia went into the Test series against New Zealand in a state of virtual civil war with the ACB. The row was papered over for the first Test, but on the first morning at Perth it erupted. Wisden noted that Australia's win "was almost incidental to the off-field machinations concerning a possible strike". The trouble came when the board leaked possible dates of a player strike to the media, and late-night meetings between the two parties, and other hastily arranged discussions during rain breaks, punctuated the match. Australia won, the players backed down, and the ACB subsequently got a low blow in when it dropped Mark Taylor and Ian Healy, the captain and vice-captain, for the one-day tournament that followed.

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