The spectre of industrial action loomed over the New Zealand sporting scene today when the country's first-class cricketers, including internationals, told their national body they were not free to take part in an intensive programme of warm-up activities at the country's High Performance Centre at Lincoln University.

In the first hint of player power since the formation of a players' association last year, the players, who came off their contracts to New Zealand Cricket (NZC) yesterday, have struck their blow for a better deal for first-class cricketers in New Zealand.

While such action is common in more professionalised sporting countries, it is something new for New Zealand which really only embraced professionalism when the national sport, rugby, opened the doors to cash input in 1995.

On that occasion there was an immediate foot race for the rights to the players with the threat of a breakaway body stealing the top players before they could be contracted to their more traditional administration, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU).

An eleventh-hour agreement secured the players for the NZRFU and the industrial scene has been relatively quiet since.

Cricket, by its very origins, has had a much closer link with professionalism. There were none of the amateur regulations that surrounded many other sports in New Zealand. Players were free to make their own arrangements at all levels in the game and several players were full-time professionals in England, including Glenn Turner, Richard Hadlee, Geoff Howarth, John Wright and John Parker.

More recently Chris Cairns, Stephen Fleming and Shane Bond have had a taste of the life of a professional in England.

Given the advance of players' rights in other sports, most notably in the home of professional sport in the United States, it was only a matter of time before issues started to surface in New Zealand.

And when the players' association swung into cricket, their presence was welcomed by NZC chief executive Martin Snedden.

However, there were signs of growing stature for the players' group in the days before the announcement of the team to tour the West Indies in June. The announcement of the side was delayed a day due to outstanding issues.

The greater demands on players in terms of the 10-year Test programme, the introduction of the ICC Champions Trophy, the increased exposure to the risk of injury, have meant that a collision point was sure to emerge at some stage.

Players obviously eyed the pool of money coming out of guaranteed television income from tours and tournaments, especially the upcoming World Cup, and felt they were due a better share of it.

That is not a new, or surprising, argument by any stretch and was the historical precedent behind the breakaway World Series Circus set up by Australian television magnate Kerry Packer's organisation in 1977.

What makes the situation interesting in New Zealand is the commitment administrators have made to developing the grass roots of the game, and their own development programme.

These are areas where investment has the potential to be reasonably intensive and therefore vulnerable to action.

The whole process is intensely interesting as it represents a new level of negotiation for both the players and administration. In many aspects it is foreign territory for both of them and with the larger international issues looming overhead, especially the rights of individual players to negotiate their own agreements in terms of personal sponsorships.

By no choice of their own, cricket's administrators find themselves in the vanguard of an issue that is likely to apply to many other New Zealand sports.

Just as the game was one of the first to undergo rigorous internal realignment of its administration in New Zealand, so now NZC finds itself at the forefront in what are nothing short of industrial matters.

The steps it takes are important not only for cricket in New Zealand, but undoubtedly for many sports yet to face similar pressures.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are not necessarily those of New Zealand Cricket or of the New Zealand Cricket Players' Association.

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