Ponting stumped on ICC contracts

BRISBANE - One-day cricket captain Ricky Ponting was unable to rule out Australian players boycotting future international tournaments because of controversial sponsorship contracts being forced upon them.

And he admitted he was stumped as to how players or the Australian Cricket Broad (ACB) could get around controversial International Cricket Council sponsorship contracts which have been rejected by leading players around the world.

With England's top players being pressured not to sign the ICC contracts and India's cricket board poised to select a second-string squad after a player revolt, next month's Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka appears in danger of becoming a second grade tournament.

The bones of contention for players around the world are ICC contract clauses directly affecting players' individual sponsorships.

It's a huge issue for many players, especially master batsman Sachin Tendulkar whose sizeable income is derived mostly from giant companies using his profile in cricket-mad India.

"We can sit down and talk about it, but there's really not much we can do about it," conceded Ponting on his arrival in Brisbane today to prepare for a triangular one day tournament in Kenya as a build-up to the Champions Trophy.

Asked if that meant the ICC had to change it's contract, Ponting said "I don't think that's going to happen either.

"I don't think there's any right answer to this whole thing ... if there had been, I'm sure it would have been resolved by now."

"It's not only the Australian players who aren't signing these contracts it's all around the world and the Australian players aren't directly affected 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 their right to have individual sponsors, he was not keen on the idea of player boycotts.

"I don't think any of the [Australian] players want a boycott, that's not what we are all about," he said.

"We all want to play cricket for our country and win these tournaments around 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 a long 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 its new $1 billion rights deal with Global Cricket Corporation.

The deal is dependent on country's sending full-strength sides to the Champions Trophy and next year's World Cup in South Africa.

The ICC's contracts ban players from endorsing products of rival companies for 30 days of events such as the 12-nation Champions Trophy and the World Cup.

"It's a concern and obviously something that's been spoken about for the last few weeks," said Ponting.

"It hasn't really progressed too far.

"We [players] have a meeting as a group with [chief executive of the Australian Cricketers Association] Tim May today and hopefully we can get closer to it [resolution] then."

Ponting said he did not have any conflicting sponsors at next month's Champions Trophy tournament in Sri Lanka and he didn't know of any teammates who did.

"But I'm sure down track and for the World Cup and in future that we will have come conflict and those are the things we will discuss at our meeting today." he said.

"Hopefully it can be resolved quite quickly and the [Champions Trophy] tournament goes ahead."