Cricket lovers around the world have been deprived of reports and photographs from the first Test match between Australia and Sri Lanka, which began in Brisbane yesterday, because of an accreditation dispute that would effectively have forced news organisations to pay to cover matches.

Most Australian news companies accepted Cricket Australia’s revised terms, but journalists and photographers from the world’s leading agencies, including Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, were locked out of the Gabba.

They have suspended all coverage of the Australian season, which includes another Test against Sri Lanka, four against India and countless one-day internationals, until an agreement is reached.

The dispute centres on unprecedented demands from Cricket Australia, which wants to make agencies pay a licence fee for the right to cover matches and impose strict limits on the distribution of news and pictures to online publishers.

“We don’t pay news sources for the right to hear and tell their stories and we don’t pay organisers of newsworthy events for the right to cover them,” Dave Tomlin, of Associated Press, said. “When we start doing that we can kiss our credibility goodbye.”

Dominic Young, director of editorial services for News International, publisher of The Times, described it as an attack on readers and therefore fans. “They are the ultimate victims of these restrictions,” Young said. “They have a right to full and unrestricted reporting of news events.”

Helen Coonan, Australia’s Communications Minister, also said that it was wrong for the fans to suffer. “It’s not Australian and it’s not cricket,” she said. “We do not want fans to be caught in the middle of this dispute.”

Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey both scored centuries as Australia declared their first innings on 551 for four. Sri Lanka were 31 for two at the close on day two, with Brett Lee taking both wickets.

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