Australian cricketers will boycott an Australia A tour of South Africa unless Cricket Australia takes action within days to resolve a bitter pay dispute.

Players held an emergency meeting in Sydney on Sunday where they threatened to boycott the Australia A tour, scheduled to start on 12 July.

The cricketers say unless a new memorandum of understanding is signed by Friday, they won’t be touring South Africa.

Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) chief executive Alistair Nicholson says a “significant breakthrough” is needed for the tour to proceed.

“They don’t intend to tour but the reality is they don’t fly out of the country until Friday,” Nicholson told reporters on Sunday.

“So the players are going to go into camp as planned and hopefully we can make some progress with regards to the MoU.”