Islamabad United have sacked Dean Jones, their head coach for the past four seasons, and replaced him with former captain Misbah-ul-Haq. The signing of Misbah - who is also Pakistan's head coach and chief selector - has led to the five other PSL franchises raising objections, bringing up the issue of a potential conflict of interest given his multiple roles.

Jones confirmed his sacking via a video message on Twitter, where he expressed his disappointment while also recalling his stint with the team, with whom he had won two titles. It is understood, however, that his removal had been on the cards for more than a year.

He coached them to the Pakistan Super League title twice in four seasons, but Islamabad United have decided to part ways with head coach Dean Jones.

( @ProfDeano) pic.twitter.com/jtZQ1pBntA

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) November 6, 2019

Islamabad are yet to officially announce Misbah's appointment, but it is understood that they had him on board weeks before he signed up for the Pakistan job. It is also understood that the PCB, who had earlier promised to form a policy against holding dual jobs in the same set-up, had agreed to Misbah having multiple jobs within the same organisation.

The PCB is now facing significant pressure from the other franchises to discuss the issue. One of the possible solutions floated is to bar Misbah from participating in the selection process on the PSL draft day. Franchises have also objected Misbah's presence in the dressing room as head coach with Islamabad.

The PCB's chief executive officer Wasim Khan had earlier contended that allowing Misbah to coach at the PSL would ultimately be to "Pakistan's benefit". It is also understood that during his time in PSL he will not get a salary from the PCB for his role with the Pakistan national team.

Last year, the PCB, under Mani, had removed chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq from the PSL player draft committee because of a potential conflict of interest since he was involved in a talent-hunt programme run by one of the tournament's franchises, Lahore Qalandars. Tauseef Ahmed, who was part of the national selection committee while also serving as Islamabad United's spin coach, was also left out of the PSL draft committee.

The dual-role issue had also cropped up with former Pakistan head coach Mickey Arthur, who was also head coach at Karachi Kings for three of his four years in the national job. Similarly, Azhar Mahmood was bowling coach of Pakistan as well as Karachi Kings. The contract signed by them with the PCB originally allowed them to take up dual roles but after Mani took charge as PCB chairman, he came down against it. Arthur, however, has now been removed from the role by Karachi Kings.

Misbah's previous stint with Islamabad had ended on a bad note after he backtracked on his agreement to be their mentor for the 2019 edition. He was picked as a player instead and went on to play for Peshawar Zalmi. Before changing his decision, Misbah reportedly offered Islamabad his services as a player but the franchise was not keen to have him in that role.

Ben McDermott, the Australian wicketkeeper/batsman, has signed a white-ball deal that will see him become Derbyshire's overseas player in both the One-Day Cup and the T20 Blast next season.

McDermott, 24, has been in Australia's squads for their T20 series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and is likely to be available for the duration of both tournaments, though he could miss some games if named in the ODI squad to play England in July.

His move follows that of Sean Abbott, the New South Wales seamer who will represent Derbyshire as their other Blast overseas player, as well as the County Championship run-in.

The two deals will offer some optimism to Derbyshire fans, not least after budgetary constraints prevented the signing of a high-profile overseas player for most of last year's Blast. Logan van Beek, the New Zealand allrounder, was the club's primary overseas player, but after deals for Billy Stanlake and Kane Richardson fell through, they were left to pick one, rather than the maximum two overseas players for most of their T20 fixtures. Boyd Rankin's short-term deal later in the competition made him a second overseas option, but he played only five times.

But with three England Under-19 players - Alfie Gleadall (released), James Taylor (Surrey) and Hamidullah Qadri (Kent) - leaving at the end of the season, funds have opened up to allow those two signings, in addition to the recruit of South African seamer Michael Cohen.

McDermott has an impressive white-ball record - he has a healthy average of 54.64 in List A cricket and finished eighth in the Big Bash run charts last season - and gives Derbyshire an additional option with the gloves.

Dave Houghton, the club's head of cricket, said: "Ben comes to us with a good reputation and he is exactly what we are looking for in T20, a dynamic wicketkeeper-batsman who can bat throughout the order.

"In the 50-over competition his batting will be of great benefit and he gives us another option with the gloves. Ben's capable of taking the attack to the opposition as we look to build on white ball performances in 2019."

McDermott said: "This is a really exciting opportunity for me and I can't wait to test myself in new conditions with Derbyshire.

"The team did really well last season and I'm looking forward to helping them build. I love the short format stuff, but I've found good form in the 50-over competitions back home and I want to bring that to Derbyshire next summer."

Matthew Maynard, the former England batsman, has been appointed as Glamorgan's permanent head coach after spending the 2019 season in the job on an interim basis.

Maynard led the side to fourth in Division Two of the County Championship last season - their joint-highest finish since 2010 - and has been rewarded with a three-year deal.

He first re-joined the club at the end of 2017 in a batting consultant role, having previously been head coach from 2008 to 2010. His first spell in charge ended acrimoniously, as he resigned branding his position "untenable" following the appointment of Alviro Petersen as captain, which was made without him being consulted.

He later enjoyed a successful spell at Titans in South Africa, where he won the domestic four-day competition and the Ram Slam in 2013. He then spent three years at Somerset as director of cricket before re-joining Glamorgan.

Maynard said it was "very exciting to be able to carry on the work we started this year".

"I love being a part of this club and I have enjoyed working with the players and coaching staff throughout the season," he said. "There is lots of talent within the squad and we have a good mix of young players and experienced heads."

Despite their strong showing in the Championship, Glamorgan struggled in both white-ball competitions last season. They finish sixth in the South Group of the One-Day Cup, and dead last in the Blast, registering their only win in the season's final game.

"We saw a big improvement in the County Championship and Royal London One-Day Cup," Maynard said, "but it's important we continue that upward trajectory and take our form across into the Vitality Blast next season."

Mark Wallace, the club's director of cricket, said: "We are delighted to have secured Matt as our permanent head coach.

"After conducting a thorough review of the season with players, coaches and staff, it became apparent Matt should continue his role as head coach. The side showed a great deal of improvement across two of the three formats under his leadership and came very close to gaining promotion in the County Championship.

"Matt is a highly experienced head coach who has developed his skills around the world and possesses an intimate knowledge of the club and how we are structured. He has developed a very good rapport with the players since his return and helped to improve their individual games and mindsets."

Big picture

"It's been a great learning day for us," said Eoin Morgan after a chastening defeat in the third T20I at Nelson. It wasn't exactly said with relish, but there was obvious conviction in his words as he offered up a subtle variation on one of the abiding themes of his England captaincy.

Throughout England's four-year rise to become the 50-over world champions, Morgan's reaction to their intermittent setbacks had been to present an unapologetic public face - "no, we will not stop playing our natural attacking game" - even if, in private, he was obliged to give a more honest appraisal of scorelines such as 20 for 6 against South Africa at Lord's in 2017, or 8 for 5 against Australia at Adelaide.

The difference in those contests, of course, was England's focus was on fine-tuning a team that was already good enough to take on the world, so presenting an unshakeable belief in the men and the methods was a key part of the process. The remit at this stage of this new-look outfit, on the other hand, couldn't really be much more different.

With the next T20 World Cup only a year away, and with a raft of automatic picks taking a well-earned break, the value of days such as occurred on Tuesday, when England squandered five wickets for ten runs in 18 balls to throw away an enviable chance to go 2-1 up in the series, will only be known in hindsight, if the players concerned take on board the lessons and process them for their next crunch encounter.

That said, England have had previous of learning on the hoof in this format. Their run to the final of the World T20 in 2016 was built on a wide-eyed acceptance of the team's relative naivety, as the team took their licks (not least from Chris Gayle in Mumbai) and found the appropriate response, as players such as Jason Roy and Jos Buttler had the first proper flex of their muscles on the world stage. Had it not been for Carlos Brathwaite's epic finale in Kolkata, they'd have had more to show for their studiousness than a handful of happy memories.

The relative stakes could hardly be lower in this particular series - a post-World Cup fever dream being played beyond the other side of the world, and in a time-zone that deters even the most hardened of English night-owls from tuning in to pay attention. But the opportunity to bed into the fabric of the England set-up, and get some hard-earned experience without attracting any definitive judgements from a public that is broadly speaking looking the other way.

That said, they are up against an opponent that really rather fancies getting one over their World Cup vanquishers. New Zealand took their time to find their range in this series after a stutter in the opening match. But with Colin de Grandhomme swinging from the hip in the middle order and Martin Guptill threatening to find some form at the top, they've got the weapons to put England's rookie-dominated outfit under yet more pressure.

Form guide

England LLWWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)

New Zealand WWLLW

In the spotlight

With six of England's new boys on display in their last outing, there was all the more expectation placed on the team's relative old sweats … and to varying degrees, they missed the chance to stamp their mark on the contest. But while Dawid Malan and James Vince produced the raw materials for an England victory, it was Sam Billings' second-ball run-out that really started the rot in the run-chase. That moment also took his series tally to a meagre 23 runs in three innings (albeit with one not-out), and continued the impression of a cricketer who just can't quite seize the mantle as England's next cab off the rank. A terrible shoulder injury wrecked his World Cup hopes - he would surely have challenged James Vince for the final batting spot - and his last England innings prior to this tour was a blistering 87 against West Indies in Basseterre. But a white-ball average of 19.00 in what is now a four-year England career is not going to keep him in the frame forever.

Welcome back Trent Boult, we've been expecting you. New Zealand's outstanding left-arm quick slots back into the squad after missing the first three games to focus on his red-ball form ahead of the Test series - and four second-innings wickets for Northern Districts in last weekend's Plunket Shield confirmed his rhythm on that front. However, in T20Is he's been a bit of a spare part in recent years. He hasn't featured in any of New Zealand's last 13 matches dating back to the tri-series final against Australia in Auckland in February 2018. That could be put down largely to the prioritisation of 50-over cricket in the build-up to this summer's World Cup but, with back-to-back T20 World Cups on the horizon, this is the start of his rebirth in this format. The fact that he's been something of a fixture for Delhi in the IPL in between whiles suggests he won't find it too hard to pick up the appropriate rhythm.

Team news

Boult's return to the fray means that it is Lockie Ferguson's turn to take a break from the front line. He's not yet made a New Zealand Test debut, but with a round of Plunket Shield fixtures beginning tonight, it's not out of the question that he could feature again on this England tour. Blair Tickner, a tall and strapping seamer, looked the part in his first outing of the series - and only his second in international cricket - and in bagging both Tom Banton and James Vince in his day's work, he was one of the linchpins of New Zealand's win and deserves another chance. Daryl Mitchell and Scott Kuggeleijn may be the men to miss out.

New Zealand (possible): 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Colin Munro, 3 Tim Seifert (wk), 4 Colin de Grandhomme, 5 Ross Taylor, 6 Jimmy Neesham, 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Tim Southee (capt), 9 Ish Sodhi, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Blair Tickner

England are eager to find out what their new boys are made of - and all six of them featured in the Nelson defeat. But they are equally keen to return home with a series win, and at 2-1 down with two to play, the likelihood is that they revert back to some more tried-and-trusted options. In particular, Jonny Bairstow and Chris Jordan can expect to slot back into the starting XI after sitting out the third fixture, though who makes way for them could be an interesting decision. Tom Banton, underused so far, is surely worth another look - otherwise why bother bringing him all this way - so James Vince, whose three innings have been a microcosm of his promise and frustration, might be the fall guy. Likewise Matt Parkinson, impressive in his two overs at Nelson, is surely worth testing in a must-win contest.

England (possible): 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Tom Banton, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Sam Billings (wk), 6 Lewis Gregory, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Tom Curran, 9 Chris Jordan, 10 Matt Parkinson, 11 Pat Brown

Pitch and conditions

The solitary floodlit fixture of this five-match series is being played on a drop-in pitch at another of New Zealand's rugby-dominant venues, with their habitually short square boundaries that will doubtless challenge any spinner who dares to lose his length.

Stats and trivia

• Napier is hosting only its second T20I. New Zealand won the ground's inaugural fixture, against Bangladesh in January 2017, by six wickets. The absent Kane Williamson anchored the run-chase on that occasion with 73 not out from 55 balls, but Colin de Grandhomme - Man of the Match in their last outing at Nelson - provided the final flourish with 41 from 22 balls.

• McLean Park is situated in a curiously suburban corner of Napier, albeit a short stroll from the Art Deco-dominated town centre that was extensively rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1931.

  Stats that matter

• Tim Southee still requires two wickets to become the eighth man to claim 75 T20I wickets, having gone wicketless in his last outing.

• Adil Rashid requires one more wicket to draw level with Jade Dernbach as the fourth-highest T20I wicket-taker for England. Dernbach took 39 T20I wickets - only Graeme Swann (51), Chris Jordan (52) and Stuart Broad (65) have more for England.

• Colin Munro requires 35 runs to draw level with Kane Williamson's run-tally of 1,505 for New Zealand in T20Is. Munro has played one more game (58 to 57), though Williamson has batted once more often. Only three men (Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor) have scored more T20I runs for New Zealand than Williamson.

  Quotes

  "Rossco [Taylor] has been asking for freebies all week, but I know he's got a hefty wallet, so he'll be paying in full." Café owner Blair Tickner isn't caving to his team-mates demands for free coffee

  "The summer was tragic for me and my family and I like to think that I've used what happened in July to spur me on. If I hadn't used it in a positive way, then I don't think I'd be here playing for England."
  Matt Parkinson is proud of how he responded to the recent death of his mother, Maria

The threat of inclement weather looming over the second T20I between India and Bangladesh in Rajkot has reduced with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) saying Cyclone Maha has weakened and moved to the eastern parts of India. The chances of the match starting on time were further increased as Rajkot woke up to a sunny morning, and that weather has persisted through the day.

As per the IMD's previous forecast, Cyclone Maha was scheduled to land in Gujarat on November 6, threatening to cause "heavy or very heavy rains". That threat nearly materialised after thunder and heavy downpour hit Rajkot early evening on Wednesday. Consequently, according to the Saurashtra Cricket Association president Jaydev Shah, the ground was waterlogged.

"It rained heavily last evening. It lasted about half an hour but the whole ground was wet," Shah told ESPNcricinfo. With covers stretching only till the 30-yard circle, Shah was sceptical at that point about the match going ahead, but he said the groundstaff worked late into the night to mop up the outfield. "Today it is bright and shiny and since morning it has been dry."

Though conditions are to remain cloudy as per the forecast, Shah is confident about the drainage facilities at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.

Bangladesh lead the three-match series 1-0 after winning the opening game in Delhi on Sunday.

Crowds for the start of the international season are down some 35,000 on Cricket Australia's projections, the chief executive Kevin Roberts has revealed, though the governing body remains committed to pushing fixtures further out at either end of the traditional summer and school holidays window to get the public better used to watching the game before December.

Twenty20 turnouts of 16,268 for Adelaide Oval, 11,986 for the Gabba, 28,568 for the MCG, 19,176 for the SCG and 8,848 at Manuka Oval in Canberra have been decidedly underwhelming but a part of CA's longer term ambition to re-claim a wider portion of the warmer months for their own after some years of creep by football codes, especially the AFL, in terms of scheduling and media-cycle dominance. A similar move has been made next year with the scheduling of an ODI series against New Zealand in March.

Roberts said that while the attendance figures were comfortably below what CA had projected, sales for the Boxing Day Test - New Zealand's first since 1987 - are looking healthier than expected, meaning the chances are that by the end of summer totals will be near to where management had expected them.

"We're disappointed with where those crowds are at," Roberts told SEN Radio. "It's not surprising that the grounds weren't full, given our experience of this time of year, and we need to use next year's men's side of the T20 World Cup, in October-November, as a reminder that October-November is cricket season, and make sure we've got the best possible model going forward to fill the right grounds at that time of year.

"It's a better quality experience for fans at the match and a better quality experience for people watching the matches at home or on their phones when grounds are full. That's certainly something we're committed to and looking to use next year's men's T20 event as a springboard towards that. We're not completely surprised by it, [but] we are a little disappointed.

"We're about 35,000 people below where we wanted to be in aggregate across all those matches combined, but the good news is that our projections for the Boxing Day Test against New Zealand we think will see us make up that gap. Like with any season there's swings and roundabouts, and at this point in time we reckon the ledger will be pretty much square versus our expectations by the time we get to December 30th, the end of the Boxing Day Test."

This season, 2019-20, is the second year of a new broadcast deal that places all T20I and ODI matches behind the Foxtel paywall, meaning that advertising and promotion of those broadcasts are also seen by significantly smaller audiences relative to the large free-to-air footprint offered by Seven, which broadcasts Test matches, the WBBL and the BBL.

Roberts said that CA would look into how early-season matches could be more effectively promoted in future seasons, though the T20 World Cup next year will bring a momentum of its own, as demonstrated when 93,013 people crammed into the MCG for the 2015 ODI World Cup final in late March.

"I think enough effort went into it absolutely. We need to continue challenging ourselves as to the extent to which that's the right effort," Roberts said. "Certainly don't question the commitment or the effort anyone put into it, but we do need to get increasingly creative as we go forward in terms of how we can attract more fans to matches.

"There's certainly nothing that resembles a crisis in any of this, we're not overly concerned about it, but it's absolutely something that as an organisation that wants to continue learning and growing, then there are insights we can learn from as we seek to improve in future seasons, no doubt."

Big Picture

Rain in Sydney not only robbed Australia of the chance to complete a T20 series victory over Pakistan in the space of two matches, it also meant that the hosts will not be able to overtake Babar Azam's team as the world's No. 1 ranked T20I team with a win in the final match in Perth - the tourists will cling on by a single point even in defeat.

But there remains plenty to play for, not least the series itself, and also the continuing road towards a now imminent Test series between the two teams, beginning in Brisbane in a couple of weeks' time. Pakistan still appear very much in acclimatising mode, having run into an Australian side committing serious mental and physical energy to T20 international matches for the first time since the 2016 global event - next year's on home soil being the first of two in as many years.

While Australia will have to rebalance their bowling attack somewhat, in the absence of Pat Cummins as he freshens up ahead of the Tests, there has been a strong sense of cohesion about the hosts' approach, either attacking from the top through Aaron Finch and David Warner or letting Steven Smith direct traffic for the middle order in the event of an early wicket or two. With the ball and in the field, the Australians have not quite been as stingy as the Perth Scorchers at their best, but they are tracking that way both in terms of tight bowling combinations and predatory work to cut off runs and seek run-outs.

Pakistan offered some signs of hope at Manuka Oval, not least the aggression of Iftikhar Ahmed as some long-awaited help for Babar, but also a little more cutting edge to their bowling line-up. The additional bounce on offer at Perth Stadium, where Australia's ODI team was well beaten by South Africa at the start of last summer, has the potential to bring the visitors still further into the game, should they get their lengths right.

Form guide

Australia WWWWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)
Pakistan LLLLL

In the spotlight

Never conceding more than 27 runs in a spell while also scooping six wickets, Ashton Agar has been a considerable success story for Australia over this bracket of T20 matches. He has, with help from Adam Zampa, ensured that the hosts have a three-dimensional nature to their bowling attack that has not always been evident in the game's shortest format. Pakistan, like the world's other nations, will need to find a better way to combat his changes of pace and variations in spin before next year's global event on similar surfaces.

Scores of 59 not out and 50 have underlined the rare nature of Babar Azam's talents, but in each case his innings have not amounted to all they might have been for a lack of adequate help. With Iftikhar having announced himself in Canberra, albeit on a less bouncy wicket that can be expected in Perth, there is reason for Babar to hope that others may soon come to the party.

Team news

The decision to rest Cummins for the final match of the series suggests a possible return to the side for Sean Abbott, though Billy Stanlake is also waiting in the wings.

Australia (probable): 1 David Warner, 2 Aaron Finch (capt), 3 Steven Smith, 4 Ben McDermott, 5 Ashton Turner, 6 Alex Carey (wk), 7 Ashton Agar, 8 Sean Abbott, 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Adam Zampa, 11 Kane Richardson

A promotion may be possible for Iftikhar following his Canberra fireworks and the need for Babar to have more support towards the top of the order.

Pakistan (probable): 1 Babar Azam (capt), 2 Fakhar Zaman, 3 Haris Sohail, 4 Iftikhar Ahmed, 5 Mohammad Rizwan (wk), 6 Asif Ali, 7 Imad Wasim, 8 Wahab Riaz 9 Shadab Khan, 10 Mohammad Amir, 11 Mohammad Irfan/Mohammad Musa

Pitch and conditions

The Perth Stadium pitch can be expected to be fast and bouncy, with a hot day forecast for Perth - temperatures are expected to be around 33C about the time of the first ball at 4.30pm local time.

Stats and trivia

• David Warner needs 67 runs to become the leading all-time T20I scorer in matches between Australia and Pakistan, surpassing Umar Akmal (335 runs) and Kamran Akmal (366)

• Australia and Pakistan have never played a T20I against each other in Perth before

Quotes

"In the past we've used these opportunities to rest some of those guys but we need to get better at it. It's something that's a priority for Australian cricket so therefore you want to play your best players as often as you can. We're really lucky, we've got great depth in the squad. We've got a ripping bunch of blokes in this squad and that's really pleasing."
Justin Langer doesn't want to see any drop in intensity for the final game of the T20 series

LOS ANGELES -- Eight games into the season, Doc Rivers is done with the newly implemented coach's challenge rule.

A frustrated Rivers vented about the rule after he lost a challenge in the fourth quarter of the LA Clippers' 129-124 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks at Staples Center on Wednesday night.

The call in contention was an offensive foul drawn by Milwaukee point guard Eric Bledsoe on Clippers guard Lou Williams with 7:18 remaining in the game and the Bucks up 108-101. Williams was driving past Bledsoe when the Bucks point guard snapped his head back following possible contact with Williams' arm.

Rivers thought Bledsoe got away with a fast one on the officiating crew.

"That was awful," Rivers said afterward. "It was. They should've overturned it. That's why I hate the rule. Nobody wants to be wrong. Let me just say that. You have to overturn that. Unless Bledsoe fouled Lou with his face, there was no foul on that play."

After official Courtney Kirkland called the foul on Williams, Rivers signaled for the play to be reviewed. The play was replayed over and over from different angles on the big screen, and the Staples Center crowd booed about there being any contact between Bledsoe's face and Williams' arm.

Williams and Rivers pleaded their case with official Zach Zarba. Coaches can use one challenge per game, regardless of whether it is successful, and a team must have a timeout and call one after the challenged play.

There must be clear and conclusive visual evidence to overturn a call. Through Wednesday night, there have been 70 challenges across the league this season, with 25 overturned (36%). Of those challenges, there have been 13 offensive fouls challenged, with just three overturned (23%).

Rivers is 0-for-2 in coach's challenges this season, after he also unsuccessfully challenged a call with 33 seconds remaining in a 130-122 loss at the Phoenix Suns on Oct. 26. Five Clippers opponents have challenged calls, with only one successful overturn for the Utah Jazz during the fourth quarter on Nov. 3.

"There was a flop," Rivers argued Wednesday night. "I think it [would've] been more of a chance that Bledsoe got a letter from the league about flopping than Bledsoe got fouled.

"That was awful. I don't like the rule anyway. I said it up front. And now I like it even less."

In his public statements about the evolution of the free-agent market, Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, has taken pains not to use the word collusion. For more than two years now, the MLBPA has asked agents to take notes on the free-agent conversations they have with teams so it can search for patterns, smoking guns, anything that might hint at coordination among the 30 teams. Nothing actionable has been found.

It made the tone of a release issued Wednesday by the union that much more startling. Clark all but accused teams of colluding based on the words of Atlanta Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos, who in a conference call Tuesday with reporters had alluded to conversations with other teams about free agency and how it would affect trade discussions.

Clark's words were unsparing. Amid announcing that the union would investigate teams potentially running afoul of the collective bargaining agreement, Clark said Anthopoulos "call[ed] into question the integrity of the entire free-agent system. The clear description of club coordination is egregious."

The notion of teams discussing free agents, if only in passing, does ring true. "Are we supposed to talk about only trades?" one general manager asked Wednesday. "And do they want us to talk trades with no other context?" The union's answer, at least according to its statement, is: yes. Because anything beyond that, the argument goes, would violate Article XX(E)(1) of the collective bargaining agreement, which ends: "Players shall not act in concert with other Players and Clubs shall not act in concert with other Clubs."

It was a bold attack by the union, one that drew huzzahs from some players who believe the league is colluding and eye-rolls from others who saw it as little more than grandstanding. Whatever the motivation, it was a shot across the bow from Clark on the third day of free agency. With another offseason expected to mirror the past two winters -- slow, dreary, disappointing for players -- Clark has made his style clear. He is going to fight.

This particular skirmish could take months, maybe more, to play out. The union's next step as part of its investigation will be to request information from the league. The questions it will ask to determine coordination among teams and how MLB will respond to the request are key. If the league doesn't cooperate, the union could file a grievance to gather information. If the league does cooperate and the union finds actions it believes constitute a violation of the collective bargaining agreement, the MLBPA could file a grievance alleging collusion.

Further, it could look to Article XX(E)(5), which states that if an arbitration panel finds five or more teams violated XX(E)(1) about acting in concert with other teams, the MLBPA can reopen the collective bargaining agreement after giving MLB 60 days' notice.

All of that, of course, depends upon the union finding something it hasn't found in years of searching. Collusion is not impossible to prove, as the MLBPA showed three times in the 1980s. The most recent collusion case concerned a so-called "information bank," which the league created to share offers teams were making to players. It was the epitome of clear and egregious, and the league paid players $280 million in damages.

This case, at least at the start, is far more opaque. It's fairest to look at what Anthopoulos said in the context of his entire quote, which he gave to reporters on a conference call after the Braves re-signed Tyler Flowers and Nick Markakis, and which The Athletic printed in full.

"We always take up until the last day because things occur -- trade scenarios, signings," Anthopoulos said. "And look, we're still obviously at the beginning of the offseason. We've got to make decisions on these players at this time because the language in their contracts dictated that we had to make those decisions today. But we know the landscape can change quite a bit between now and spring training. We examined the free-agent market. We've definitely done a pretty good analysis now that the World Series is over. We could at least have general conversations with agents, just in terms of expressing interest.

"Every day you get more information. And we've had time to connect with 27 of the clubs -- obviously the Astros and [Nationals] being in the World Series, they were tied up -- but we had a chance to get a sense of what the other clubs are going to look to do in free agency, who might be available in trades. So, the three weeks have been productive for us, just getting more information. All that shaped some of the decisions that we made. But we know there's going to be a lot more information to come, and things are certainly going to develop over the next few months, and there will be a chain reaction with certain signings -- someone signs in a certain place, maybe another player that's not available today becomes available at that time. So, it's going to be pretty fluid, and I think we're in a good position to start the offseason."

The union took umbrage at the Braves having a "sense of what other clubs are going to look to do in free agency." By Wednesday night, Anthopoulos had walked back his words, saying he misspoke, didn't discuss free agents or the free-agent market, and that he apologized for the confusion.

It did not take Anthopoulos saying it out loud for the union, or anyone else in the industry, to know these sorts of conversations happen. They happened in 2015, before the current agreement. They happened in 2010. They happened in 2000. They have happened every year of the current quarter-century of labor peace. Before the offseason kicks into gear, one team calls another. They ask what they're looking for. They kick possibilities back and forth. They try to contextualize what is what. They say if they can't fill a position via trade, they might go out and get a free agent.

One executive argues that scenario constitutes information-gathering -- something paramount in baseball today, when a minuscule knowledge advantage can be worth tens of millions. It's not an information bank, he said. It's certainly not working together, he said. It's trying to understand the lay of the land to beat them. It's pragmatism.

Now, nothing says pragmatism and collusion can't be bedfellows -- and the burden is on the union to prove that what came off as relatively innocent from Anthopoulos is something more. But if the union is determined to be dogmatic about free agency -- and there is nothing more precious to it than free agency -- then this case will persist and cleave the relationship between the parties even more.

At this point, the communication between the sides is strained, the respect for one another not particularly acute in either direction, and the fear of a work stoppage upon the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement in 2021 palpable. That's still a long way off, but they've been saying that for two years now, and in those two years none of the issues between the parties have been resolved. If anything, they've worsened.

And so baseball is left with days like Wednesday, which are bound to become more frequent. As the ramifications of the basic agreement continue to reverberate, Clark has shown he's not going wear the consequences of it without a fight. Sooner rather than later, MLB is bound to fight back, and the labor war that has been brewing for years will feel closer than ever.