THE pay dispute may be over, but its effects still linger.

Secret documents, produced by The Gemba Group in an independently conducted analysis of the pay dispute saga and obtained by foxsports.com.au, reveal the general public blamed Cricket Australia (CA) more than they did the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) and the players themselves.

But the game of cricket remains largely unaffected and the bitter war will not have a negative impact on viewership for the upcoming Ashes series.

Ticket sales for the Ashes have been the biggest yet, with the first three days of all Tests aside from Melbourne sold out.

The study also reveals cricket is the highest integrity sport in Australia — ahead of AFL, tennis, golf and swimming, and negative media attention in 2016 had a greater impact on the game’s integrity than the more recent MOU fight.

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The negative press coverage last year was predominantly focused on Australia’s poor performance in their whitewash series loss to Sri Lanka and subsequent thumping at the hands of South Africa on home soil.

The other time cricket’s integrity took a serious hit was after the 2010/11 home Ashes series loss, suggesting bad results on the field still carry as much weight as any off-field distractions.

Conversely, with Australia returning to world No. 1 in the Test rankings at the start of 2016, the reputation of the sport in general received an encouraging response.

In the days after the players and the governing body agreed to a Heads of Agreemen t, The Gemba Group conducted independent research to dissect the impacts of the MOU debate. The findings were completed on August 21. CA is aware of the results.

The findings suggest that Cricket Australia’s reputation has taken a hit in the wake of the pay dispute — with nearly half of respondents saying they felt less positive about CA.

Cricket Australia did not commission The Gemba Group to conduct this research, although it does use the sports and entertainment company for other studies such as player marketability.

This is what the six-page document uncovered:

According to the report, CA is currently recording the highest levels of negative sentiment among stakeholders of the game:

— 40 per cent of respondents said the pay dispute made them feel much less or slightly less positive about CA. This is compared to 29 per cent for the ACA, 28 per cent for the players and 25 per cent for cricket in general.

— A whopping 70 per cent of people surveyed said the dispute did not change their feelings towards the game itself, compared to 55 per cent for CA and 60 per cent for both the players and the ACA.

— But probably the clearest win for the players was the 11 per cent of respondents said the dispute made them feel either slightly more or much more positive towards the players and 12% more positive towards the ACA. By comparison, CA’s figure was 5 per cent.

Cricket engagement this summer for the BBL and The Ashes is unlikely to be negatively affected:

— 76 per cent of respondents said that the pay dispute will not change whether they will watch/attend or do the same thing they do every summer.

— 18 per cent said they would be much/slightly less likely to watch or attend The Ashes because of the dispute, while 19 per cent said they’d be much/slightly less likely to attend or watch the Big Bash League.

— 6 per cent of people said they’d be more likely to watch The Ashes, while 5 per cent said they’d me more likely to watch the BBL.

Cricket remains the highest integrity sport in Australia, although its reputation has declined far more than AFL, netball, basketball, NRL and athletics in the last 10 years:

— 23 per cent of Australians endorse cricket as ‘having integrity’ as opposed to 30 per cent in 2007.

— But even with this drop, people still trust the sport, its players and administrators more than AFL and tennis (20 per cent), golf (18 per cent) and swimming (16 per cent).

- Netball (15 per cent), basketball and NRL (14 per cent), soccer (13 per cent) and athletics (12 per cent) round out the other major sports.

— The integrity of swimming and tennis has plummeted the most over the past 10 years, with both sports recording 18 per cent drops, while golf has fallen 16 per cent.

— Basketball is the only sport to have the same integrity as it did in 2007, while AFL has dropped just 2 per cent.

— Put in perspective, cricket’s decline is relative to other sports.

Negative media attention in late 2016 had a greater impact on the integrity of cricket than recent MOU coverage:

— The integrity of cricket took a huge nosedive around the time of the 2010/11 Ashes and steadily improved from then until this time last year.

— It’s now on the way back up having retained a greater integrity than every other sport in Australia.

As broken by foxsports.com.au, the peace deal that ended the pay war was brokered on August 3 and finalised later in the month.

It brought an end to eight months of slanging and unwanted media attention that threatened the Ashes and a tour of Bangladesh.

Both Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association offered no comment when presented with the report findings.