If players perform for New Zealand they will be better off financially under the payment system offered by New Zealand Cricket in pay talks with the national Cricket Players' Association.

That was the message today from New Zealand Cricket's (NZC) chief executive Martin Snedden in response to claims that NZC wasn't being reasonable in what it was offering the players.

Snedden said that it had been frustrating not to receive a response from the Players' Association to the offer when talks were held in Wellington yesterday.

The Players' Association have said they will respond to the offer by Monday, and despite the fact it is a public holiday both parties have agreed it was necessary for the response to be made then in order for talks to resume on Wednesday.

Snedden said he thought it was a bit much for the Players' Association to be expecting NZC to be paying the costs of the Association not only for this round of negotiations but into the future as well. The demand is part of the Players' Association bargaining document.

Just because the Australian Cricket Board and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union paid for their players' committees, Snedden said he didn't agree with the principle.

"I have suggested the players should have a clear understanding of this issue," he said.

The cost to NZC of paying for the Players' Association was estimated to be around $300,000.

Snedden said that while yesterday's meeting had resolved "a whole lot of secondary issues" he was disappointed that the NZC bargaining team had been given no indication of where the Players' Association stood on the key issues.

"Until we get their offer I don't know what progress we can make on those issues," he said.

"The players' association raised our expectations with their comments on Monday but then that didn't happen," he said.

Snedden denied that the concerns of New Zealand's leading players were not being addressed.

"New Zealand Cricket is well aware of how important the key players are to New Zealand cricket," he said.

NZC had a constitutional requirement to foster cricket in New Zealand across the board and he felt the 75-80% of resources that went into the elite aspects of the game was about the right figure.

"All the different groups in New Zealand cricket are entitled to be respected," he said.

"Everyone knows we have limited funding. We don't pay top dollar because we can't.

"Australia, England and India are well out in front of the rest of the world for obvious reasons," he said when referring to the greater financial resources of those countries.

While the withdrawal of players' services for the month of October was nearing an end, Snedden said it was too early to be talking deadlines for decisions to be made.

Snedden said he had not been surprised the process was taking some time to resolve. Players' associations, a concept he supports, have been using their muscle increasingly around the world and dispute was a natural consequence of the process when the participants were so far apart in their views.

Snedden said he had been keeping all of NZC's major commercial partners in touch with what was happening and they had "universally confirmed their support for NZC," he said.

Meanwhile, Snedden said the interests of women's cricket were not a factor in the Players' Association concerns.

Women's cricket around the world was an amateur game.

"In New Zealand we in fact have the best professional set-up in the world for women's cricket.

"We don't make any player payments in the women's game and have never been asked by them to get involved in a players' association," he said.

© CricInfo