Players overworked? Excess of cricket leading to injuries to key players? BCCI says it’s clueless

[thevortex]

Who is the authority and who is the paid professional here? The managers (the authorities) have to manage the workload. Not the players themselves. Why do we have so many coaching men then?

[Chandan]

Of Burnouts, And Misplaced Priorities... Just now read this impressive column and thought I'll sghare it with you all and have your view points on the matters raised as well: Of Burnouts, And Misplaced Priorities... Venkat Ananth, Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Not so long ago, the predominant narrative in the cricketing discourse revolved around "player burnout" or what is now today called as "exhaustion". It took the BCCI to splash some cash around to silence it and somewhere, the focus through the Indian Premier League (IPL) went towards "creating a global Indian product" at the cost of its content - the players. Now, in the typically circular fashion of cricket debates, "burnout" has resurfaced, with some Indian cricketers apparently upset with the calendar thrust on them -- a calendar driven not by sound logic but by the greed of those who matter, leaving the poor player with no choice except to follow the diktat. This re-visiting of the topic has predictably resulted in pro forma denials and a studied silence on the part of the Board -- a technique that body has perfected over the years. Player welfare In the modern era, given the way cricket is played and administered, player welfare becomes a critical, if not the most important aspect, of cricket administration. Sadly, the BCCI isn't up to it. Or let's just say partly so, given that in this country player welfare is by and large seen through the sole lens of financial security. That view is no doubt is important, but in the big picture it serves more as an illusion than something concrete. Financial security apart, the most important aspect of a sportsman's career is the accepted cycle of fitness and injury issues, and in today's circumstances that has become more acute than earlier. And this is where there is a need for the players to stand up and be heard on these issues -- especially the ones involving scheduling particularly of needless commercially-motivated adventures largely driven by pre-decided obligations. There might, from the Board's point of view, be an obligation to play Sri Lanka multiple times a year, for instance -- but from the players' perspective, the problem is that such tours, shoe-horned into vacant spaces on the schedule, fill their time with no-account contests and correspondingly reduce the time they have to work on their injuries, and on their skill sets. The need of the hour is a full-time players representation body that should be a radical departure from the now-defunct Indian Cricket Players Association, which was formed in 2002 with typically noble intentions. In the years since, however, its office-bearers became not just puppets, but the actual voices of the establishment. The body should be led by players who owe no allegiance to the board; the body should take a holistic view of player concerns - from safeguarding commercial interests to providing him with a forum to express his concerns without inhibitions or fear. The body must be headed by a former Indian captain of some repute - for example, Sourav Ganguly, who possibly might know a thing or two about these issues. Yes, it creates another forum -- but given the success of similar initiatives in England, Australia and South Africa, it should hopefully work in India, despite the Board's best efforts to stop such initiatives. In the long run, such a body might end up diluting the impact of, or negating altogether, the "Board-Player Agent" nexus that dominates Indian cricket today. Corporate influence My personal opinion is that the involvement of corporates with Indian cricket is a double-edged sword. Yes, money coming into the game is terrific, especially given the larger scenario of cricketers getting improved job security through honorary employment opportunities with these very corporates. But with events like the IPL and the Champions' League, the players also become victims of a relentless corporate ideology that not just demands better commercial returns for their engagement, but also expect results from individual cricketers at all cost. Simply put, an Indian cricketer, more or less fatigued with a comprehensive calendar of international cricket, is forced to ignore the demands of a body that screams for rest and recuperation and of a mind that tells him of the need to work on some basic skills, and appear for these franchises. And for those who think T20 cricket is all about running and bowling, or having a bat-out for 20 overs, there is an element of naivete about that thought. It's a far more intensive format, mentally and physically; add to that off-the-field engagements like excessive traveling and even commercial obligations for the franchise, and it must definitely take a toll on a cricketer's body/fitness levels, unless of course they're super-humans. I'm no sports science expert, but even speaking as a layman, one of the critical elements in fitness terms is "recovery", which these guys have no time for. The Board must take a hard look at its policies, revamp the contract system (I'll come to that later) and protect some of its top players for the larger international commitments. In my view, there should be a cap on the number of IPL matches they play for their franchises -- 5 or 6 at the maximum -- and at a larger level, there also needs to be a fitness program powered by the BCCI that takes the franchises into confidence, so that burnout and exhaustion is kept in check. The larger concern is, corporates eventually end up being de facto in influencing selections, which does not make sense when you consider the larger interests of Indian cricket. In fact, it sets up the risk of serious conflict of interest: the franchise wants its star players to play all games; from an Indian cricket point of view though, the Board might want some players rested occasionally because there is a big-ticket international tour/tournament immediately after the IPL ends [as happened with the T20 World Cup this year]. While franchises are entitled to seek its big-money players' presence in the playing eleven, a balance needs to be struck between that requirement, and the need for adequate rest so that the team playing in Indian colors is fully fit. Squad System Cricket is no more a 11-player game -- the proliferation of international and domestic/league commitments means that it is time to borrow from football, to think in terms of a "squad". Or in layman terms, it is necessary to put a balanced rotation-based policy in place. An international cricket team today needs to think of 22 quality players, two to each position, with replacements ready to slot in seamlessly. Ironically, this is exactly what Greg Chappell advocated during his stint as Indian coach. Unfortunately, the fashion was to label anything Greg Chappell proposed as "experimentation" -- a word that during that era somehow acquired a negative connotation -- and thus, we ended up throwing the baby of good ideas out with the bathwater. Such a policy of seamless rotation not only provides healthy competition for those in the first XI, it also permits the team to try out various permutations and combinations based on pitch and ground conditions and even the nature of the opposition. Take an example: recently, when Yuvraj was found unfit in the Test series against Sri Lanka, Suresh Raina had to make his debut as an emergency measure (that Raina did well is neither here nor there). Had there been a proper rotation policy in place, Raina would have been used in Tests before and the team would have had a good idea of what he could do; equally, had there been adequate rotation, Yuvraj would have had more time to recover from injuries rather than being rushed into the squad, thus risking aggravation of existing problems. Most importantly, a proper rotation policy based on the "squad" concept allows the team management to rest some of the members who might be fatigued. This is something the BCCI and Gary Kirsten should work on in tandem, given that Indian cricketers play more cricket in a calendar year than their counterparts. Revamped contract system Finally, the time is ripe for the BCCI to acknowledge that the present graded payment contract system, which came into existence in 2004, is well past its expiry date, and that an immediate reform/revamp is essential. The reason should be obvious: with the emergence of the IPL, the players are now employed by two entities where earlier, they were only employed by the BCCI. With individual players signed up with two entities, the risk of conflict of interest emerges, as mentioned earlier, to the detriment of the players' well being. The revamped contract system should be based on the English model, where centrally contracted cricketers are primarily employed with the ECB, which has the authority to take decisions that might be in the best interests of the cricketer and of English cricket. The classic case was the recently-concluded Twenty20 Cup in England, where some counties wanted their England players released to turn up for them. But thanks to the ECB, none of the fast-bowlers in particular turned out for their counties in these T20 games, barring one or two instances where there were commercial overtones. The net result was that the ECB ensured that the likes of Stuart Broad got plenty of rest through the early part of the English summer, keeping him fresh and match fit for the season ahead. This is where I sense an opportunity for India, given the multiplicity of obligations involving its employees. The time has come when the Board must start protecting and preserving its cricketers for the longer haul. A start could be in emphasizing that national commitments take precedence over IPL contracts. Effectively, this means that if the BCCI believes that a cricketer is struggling with an injury, it must put its foot down and insist that the player getting sufficient time for treatment, rest and recuperation takes priority over his turning up for franchise commitments. And also, keeping greed and private bilateral agreements aside, the time has come when the BCCI culls redundant tournaments, which serve no purpose except needlessly tiring the cricketers and putting off viewers for good. -------------------------- My comments: Indian Players association: I think BCCI had refused to recognise the body and the ex players as well as as current players didn't have the stomach to take the fight further with the parent body. Even if they stand up now, will the response of BCCI be any different? And now as most of the ex players have got extremely lucrative commentary contract or some other contracts in IPL, will they raise their voice? Current players don't have time even to get injured! How will they stand up against BCCI? The culture and even human sensitivity is much higher in England, NZ, SA or Australia. Just because these initiatives were successful there, I don't think the cold and insensitive BCCI will let it be a success in India too.

[Sooda]

The difference being that the ECB makes a stand when it does not want a player to play a match. Can the BCCI do that with the IPL, in theory?

[Feed]

Gambhir to wind up his stint at NCA Gautam Gambhir has been busy with his rehabilitation stint at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). The opener, who is nursing a knee injury, has trained under physio Paul Close and is expected to wind up his stint here on Wednesday. More... Gambhir to wind up his stint at NCA Gautam Gambhir has been busy with his rehabilitation stint at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). The opener, who is nursing a knee injury, has trained under physio Paul Close and is expected to wind up his stint here on Wednesday. The opener played in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle in July before a swelling in the knee ruled him out of the subsequent two Tests. Gambhir was then rested from the current Micromax tri-series. Gambhir is a critical player who needs to remain fit as India gears up for a busy season ahead featuring matches against Australia, New Zealand and South Africa before next year's World Cup. At the academy, Gambhir had the company of Zaheer Khan as the Indian spearhead is tending to an injured shoulder. Zaheer, who is on the steady path to recovery, will be at the NCA for a longer duration.

[achilles]

It would help if the players come out united and talk to the board about it, confront the issue head-on and the presence of the Tendulkar's and Dravid's will help the board reflect. This business of talking to the media as "sources", quoting through the media as to how "upset" they are playing inconsequential games, is but a weak and wrong way of resolving this issue.

[cowboysfan]

i really wish BCCI would give more information about player injuries.they really don't care about the fans,what the heck is a knee injury.Is it a minor sprain.a MCL or ACL injury?.

[achilles]

Having Yuvraj there would help too

[Lord]

Munaf must have life membership there

[Feed]

Are India victim of heavy workload or of poor scheduling? More... Too much or too badly scheduled? The Indians don't play more than other top cricketers around the world; it's just that their calendar is more poorly structured Sharda Ugra August 19, 2010 Features : Are India playing too much cricket? If you went strictly by record, the Indian team so far has had nothing official to say about the number of matches they play in a year, the importance and context of those matches and the toll the games take on players. If you went by recent hearsay, then the team, or rather the senior management group, ideally including the captain, the coach, the manager and senior players, have sent off an email to the BCCI protesting "inconsequential" matches and asking for the schedule to be reworked. The BCCI claims it has received no such email. Setting aside the Case of the Invisible Email and going by numbers alone, an excess of cricket cannot be an Indian grouse. In the last 12 months the Indians have not played more cricket than anyone else; their leading stars have, in fact, played fewer games than the frontline Australians. A look at the combined Test, ODI, Twenty20 international, IPL and Champions League Twenty20 numbers reveals that, on sheer quantity, Australia's Shane Watson topped the table with 111 days of cricket, and Michael Hussey was just behind at 105. Even pace bowler Mitchell Johnson squeezed in 95 days on the job, just ahead of India's multi-tasking captain MS Dhoni, who on Monday was involved in his 94th day of cricket in the last 12 months. Save for Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma, both in the 60s, the other Indians (apart from those in the table above) come at a safe distance: Pragyan Ojha 56, Amit Mishra 41, Praveen Kumar 35. Dhoni's tally is not even the most cricket played by an Indian in a year. Way back in the calendar year 2002, as India readied to launch its unexpected run to the World Cup final, their captain, Sourav Ganguly, played 106 days of cricket and Rahul Dravid 102, which included keeping wicket in ODIs. All this without 14 IPL matches and attendant pay cheques. Even so, Ganguly's was not the record for most days of cricket played by anyone. That still belongs to Syed Kirmani's 107 days in 1983. It can be said that the last 12 months of India's cricket have certainly been high-profile, high-attention and high-intensity. Issues like hectic travel schedules, sapping weather, the IPL's playing and party schedule, could count as subjective factors that may strengthen 2010 India's invisible email complaint. Yet these identical factors apply to the Sri Lankans as well as other overseas players who dive into the IPL with the enthusiasm of infants sighting lollies. Sangakkara's 87 and Jayawardene's 86 match days in the last 12 months include 13 each in the IPL. Among the leading overseas players, Jacques Kallis played 16 IPL days (the same number as the much younger Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and Pragyan Ojha) and two Champions League matches in his 82 days of cricket. The only singular element that the Indians can claim as their own is, of course, the weight of public expectation and constant media scrutiny. But given that they are among the highest-earning cricketers in the world, these can well be considered the taxes of their celebrityhood. Much like the demand made by the market, with agents, associates, friends and everyone wanting a piece of what should ideally be their "downtime". Then, as now, it is the player who must find a way to cope. The Indians, it can be argued, are as badly served by too much cricket as they are by the abysmal planning of their calendar. Even though the leading Australians may have a larger workload than the average Indian star, the Aussies are regularly given larger chunks of time off, and a more carefully calibrated off season, thereby giving them the opportunity to store enough up in their tanks to see them through a long, hard season. Australia finished an exhausting 2009-10 season on March 31, 2010 and the next time they played as a team, it was on May 2, in the World Twenty20. In the interim Watson played six IPL matches and Hussey three. The World Twenty20 finished on May 16 and after that the Aussies were sighted on the field on June 17, for an ODI versus Ireland. So between April 1 and June 17, all the cricket the Australians were involved in was in a two-week series in the shortest format of the game, where they made the final. India's last 2009-10 fixture was an ODI against South Africa on February 27. It was swiftly followed by the IPL (March 12 to April 25), which dovetailed into the May 1 start of the World Twenty20, which for India ended on May 11. Then the pace of the game changed just a little. Dhoni, Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer, Gautam Gambhir, and Ashish Nehra were rested for just under a month, while Virender Sehwag was recovering from injury. In the meantime Suresh Raina led the Indians to Zimbabwe for six matches (four ODIs and two Twenty20s) from May 28 to June 13. The main squad gathered for the next big event, the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka, June 16-24, during which Zaheer sustained a shoulder injury that led to him missing out on the Tests against Sri Lanka. The Tests only began on July 18, and Gambhir returned home wounded after the first. The limited-overs specialists only came into action on August 10, after a break of over a month. In this whirlabout, the man who has played the most non-stop cricket in the last six months is actually Raina, who (the team's got fingers crossed) is still standing. Mileage in other sports The Indian cricket team are not alone. Dramatic match-day numbers abound in other professional sports. In the NBA, every team plays 82 matches a season from November to April and those qualifying for playoffs will play a minimum of 16 and a maximum of 28 more games heading towards the title. In Major League Baseball (MLB), more than any other sport a close parallel to cricket, if still somewhat dissimilar, a scheduled season consists of 162 scheduled matches, six games a week, (May to October) with a maximum of 19 more games for those in the race towards the World Series crown. In a season, the top four teams in the English Premier League could play as many as 55 matches. Tennis, another sport that, like cricket, involves frequent travel between time zones and calls for quick adjustment to different surfaces and often climates, too has some impressive numbers. Nikolay Davydenko played 98 days of singles tennis in 2007, Rafael Nadal 93 and Roger Federer 81 in 2008, Andy Murray 87 in 2009. This year, already Nadal has played 56 days of pro singles. Not bad for one man on his own with a fairly small support staff. India's most serious concern now, though, rests on the physical condition of Dhoni, whose right hand with its bent finger reflects the pressure he has absorbed in the last 12 months. Those months for him have included an ascent to the No. 1 Test ranking, two average ICC events, (the Champions Trophy and the World Twenty20), a win-loss record of 15-12 in 29 ODIs and 3-4 in seven Twenty20s, and a very successful IPL. As a cricketer who has mastered switching himself on and off during matches as captain and keeper, Dhoni will need to find it for his match schedule in the next six months too. The Case of the Invisible Email seems proof enough that any direct approaches the team may have made to the BCCI about the future course of their cricket did not really work. Last Saturday a top source/key member (thus described and quoted in two national newspapers) of the Indian team said, "The worst fear is as of now due to excess of cricket, [that] we will not be able to field the best XI in South Africa and during the World Cup." It is possible that this news about a letter of complaint was meant be a trial balloon from the team, a way to knock on the BCCI's door, giving a new meaning to the phrase "via media". Until now the team management has very pointedly kept all media at an arm's length, either due to BCCI gags or personal indifference, so this is quite a radical step. It is probably because the next six months include two big-ticket events that will put Dhoni's India under their most extreme examination: the tour to South Africa and the World Cup, at home. All they have left now until the World Cup are about 15 ODIs (two, perhaps three, more in Sri Lanka, three against Australia, and five each against New Zealand and South Africa). All they have left until the tour of South Africa are five Tests at home (two against Australia and three against New Zealand). Exhausting or not, meaningless or meaningful, these are the only opportunities the Indians will have. There is, of course, the minor matter of the mega-volume Champions League Twenty20, which will feature nine Indians who are in and around the ODI team at the moment - Dhoni, Raina, Tendulkar, Zaheer, Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun and Virat Kohli, in action from September 10 to 26. Rather than have a carefully planned break and a thought-through campaign calendar, India must now move from event to event using band-aid, glue and hope. Sharda Ugra is senior editor at Cricinfo

[Sooda]

Hmm. Interesting read it makes for.

[Feed]

In quest of a perfect itinerary to prevent Indian players' burn out What cricket and the IPL haven't been able to do is offer a player a clearly defined calendar. Regardless of whether you play football for Barcelona or Blackpool, you know that you'll start pre-season training in July, and that the ordeal ends the following May More... In quest of a perfect itinerary If a cricketer plays four series of three Tests and three ODIs each, a month more of limited-overs, the IPL, the Champions League, and a World Cup in a year, he could still have 12 weeks off Dileep Premachandran August 23, 2010 Over the last two years, MS Dhoni has played 52 fewer days of international cricket than his Chennai team-mate Michael Hussey How much is too much? What constitutes a sensible itinerary? How do we make sense of the numbers? With matches in the tri-series in Dambulla being played only every third day, there has been plenty of time for such questions to be asked, especially in the light of an alleged letter being sent by a disgruntled team management to the Indian cricket board's leading lights. The BCCI, which could teach an ostrich a thing or two about going incognito in the sand, responded as it usually does. It played the "we-don't-force-anyone-to-play" card. "If any player is feeling tired or fatigued, or if he feels that he would not be able perform due to some illness, then he must inform the selector," said Rajiv Shukla. "BCCI policy is very clear. We will give the player rest. We are not forcing any player to participate in the series." So are India's cricketers whingeing for no reason? The numbers might suggest so. But we also need to address the elephant in the room - the Indian Premier League. MS Dhoni and Michael Hussey are team-mates at the Chennai Super Kings, who won the trophy earlier this year. Over the last two years Hussey has played 52 more days of international cricket. But while Dhoni has played 27 IPL games in that period, Mr Cricket's tally is just three. There are those who say that bowling four overs in a Twenty20 game is no big deal, and neither is scoring a 20-ball 50. In terms of physical exertion, they're probably right, but the IPL doesn't sap players on the field as much as it does away from it. Forget the much-maligned parties, which are probably a thing of the past anyway. Think instead of a 14-game schedule (16 if you make the final) and at least 15 flights, some of them taking as long as London-Moscow. Imagine several 6am wake-up calls, appearances for sponsors, and life in a fishbowl for six weeks. The players usually have less than a week to prepare for it, and for the last two years, as soon as it's wrapped up, they've headed off to the World Twenty20. A bilateral series can last longer - Australia's players were in England four months during the Ashes last year - but the travel involved is negligible compared to that in the IPL. Apart from tours of Australia and India, where the distances can be vast, or inter-island travel in the Caribbean, international cricket these days is a picnic. Next month you have the Champions League in South Africa. The schedule is such that merely reading it can leave you dizzy. Six or seven Twenty20 games may not seem much, but it's what goes on before and after the matches that will leave players seeking a deckchair once it's over. The crux of the matter is this. The IPL and the Champions League expose players to the sort of riches that they can seldom dream of while playing for their countries. Expecting them to say no to IPL riches, even in an off season, when they should be resting, is plain hypocritical. How many of us would turn down a job offer if there was 10 or 20 times as much money on the table? When I spoke to Hussey during Australia's tour of India in 2008, he addressed the issue of player burn-out. "I think that's a huge challenge for administrators in the future. I don't think a player can sustain that sort of schedule for very long and I really hope we can sort it out. We don't want to lose great players to Twenty20 early, and we don't want to lose them from the game altogether. You want to see the players like Hayden, Murali, Ponting and Flintoff for as long as you possibly can." Apart from Ponting, the other three are no longer part of the international cricket caravan. Hayden and Murali may still play more IPL, while for Flintoff even that appears to be a pipe dream. The impact of itineraries on fast bowlers like him is a debate for another day, but there's little doubt that either he or Shane Bond would have been able to afford to leave the big stage without the security blanket that IPL contracts provided. What cricket and the IPL haven't been able to do is offer a player a clearly defined calendar. Regardless of whether you play football for Barcelona or Blackpool, you know that you'll start pre-season training in July, and that the ordeal ends the following May. Every two years the summer break means either a World Cup or a European Championship for those fortunate enough to be involved. Finding an itinerary acceptable to players, administrators, sponsors and fans alike is hardly as difficult as solving Fermat's last theorem. The traditionalists want to see enough Test cricket, and the new breed of fan wants limited-overs entertainment. The broadcasters want enough cricket on TV to get their money back. The ideal itinerary, therefore, has to cater to all these needs. Working with the guidelines provided by the Future Tours Programme, we can factor in four three-Test series for each team every year, two at home and two away. If the Tests are played back-to-back as they tend to be these days, and you have three one-day games spread over a week before or after them, the entire series lasts just a month. If you want to provide players more breathing space, it takes five weeks. So, in a maximum of 20 weeks, a team would have played 12 Tests and 12 ODIs. Set aside a month for another dozen games in coloured clothes, either of the tri-nation variety or of the seven-match vintage favoured by the BCCI when entertaining Australia. That takes you to 24 weeks on the calendar. Add in six weeks of the IPL - like it or lump it, it's not going away - and three more for the Champions League. The total comes to 33 weeks. Even with an interminably long World Cup - the last one was a seven-week slog - that still leaves a player who plays all three formats with 12 weeks off. It gives them time for a long holiday and, vitally, for pre-season training that drastically reduces the chances of breaking down. There will be exceptions. The Ashes are contested over five Tests, while the Pataudi Trophy next summer will feature four. But these "extras" are possible because teams like India and Australia rarely play more than two Tests against the likes of Bangladesh. With the long, leisurely tour a thing of the past, an extra Test or two scarcely makes a big difference. All it needs for such a schedule to be implemented is some will and foresight from administrators. Indian players aren't fatigued because they play too much. They're worn out because there's no way to plan a season, with tours added and removed on a whim. Instead of an itinerary as badly laid out as the streets of a shanty town, what's required is a little order and method. If there's a Hercule Poirot in the BCCI, now's the time for him to step forward.

[Chandan]

we can factor in four three-Test series for each team every year, two at home and two away. If the Tests are played back-to-back as they tend to be these days, and you have three one-day games spread over a week before or after them, the entire series lasts just a month. If you want to provide players more breathing space, it takes five weeks. So, in a maximum of 20 weeks, a team would have played 12 Tests and 12 ODIs. Set aside a month for another dozen games in coloured clothes, either of the tri-nation variety or of the seven-match vintage favoured by the BCCI when entertaining Australia. That takes you to 24 weeks on the calendar. Add in six weeks of the IPL - like it or lump it, it's not going away - and three more for the Champions League. The total comes to 33 weeks. Even with an interminably long World Cup - the last one was a seven-week slog - that still leaves a player who plays all three formats with 12 weeks off. It gives them time for a long holiday and, vitally, for pre-season training that drastically reduces the chances of breaking down.

This sounds like a very good idea. Like we had discussed earlier, India can have its domestic season with one series , test+ODI in October November ( 5 weeks to 6 weeks) and another series in Feb-March, test + ODI (another 5 to 6 weeks). They can play one away series in December- January each year, one to Australia, another to SA and another to NZ. So how difficult is it for BCCI to decide and draw the itinerary of an year, at least one year before?

[Roshanrocks]

DIleep hasnt met Hercules yet has he? :regular_smile: on a more serious note... BCCI can better prepare an itenary for the senior cricket team for a full year and can use a rotation policy to ensure key players donot face a burnout... they can... but somehow they never do, money money seem to be BCCI top priority lately

[Chandan]

What are your views guys? Please express it. I can't believe that you guys are not worried about the burn out out issue in Indian cricket.

[Online]

What are your views guys? Please express it. I can't believe that you guys are not worried about the burn out out issue in Indian cricket.

I am not worried because we are a population of a billion cricket hungry crazy people. If one person gets injured there will be 10 to replace him. In the short term, this will impact the team because the quality of the replacements will not be up to the same standard as the person being replaced. In the long run however, we will have people getting used to this concept and the quality of the replacements will start to become acceptable. In other words: "Survival of the fittest" Play on!!

[Ram]

If we can rewind 35 years back from the present, the then elephant in the room would have been ODI cricket, much like how T20 (IPL) is the obvious villain of this age. And just like how ODI cricket became mainstream, T20 will soon be too (if it hasnt already..). The recipe for too much cricket is not lesser of T20 cricket. That’s a dumb position to make, not because T20 cricket is a particularly fascinating format of the game that brings out some of the best performance of the players (that honor is obviously reserved for the test matches, but because that is the format the people watch the most. And sponsors go where audience goes. And players go where the sponsors go. It is plain, simple, supply-demand capitalism at work. If you want to address the issue player burnout without killing the golden egg laying goose, the solution is not to target the apparent elephant in the corner of the room (T20) but the the wolly mammoth that is standing there right in the middle of the it – One Day internationals. It is both comical and self-defeating to have TWO shorter formats of the game. People forget, T20 cricket is ALSO One day international cricket, except that it doesn’t take all day. They should ditch ODIs, create a dedicated 45 day calendar for IPL every year (speaking from a purely selfish Indian perspective.. IPL is our very own NBA, EPL, NFL.), revitalize tests by injecting new life into it by revamping the calendar and having a test championship. That should solve most of our problems.

[Zap_Brannigan]

T20 internationals should be done away with and CL needs to expand (CL because ICC is not capable of promoting club cricket) to accommodate 2 or more teams from all countries ('cept Pak ofcourse). Meaning less ODI's should also be reduced with more multi team tournaments (which ICC banned) being held. Tests are fine as it is. If having a test championship is the only option, then it should be every 4 years and not every year on a home and away basis.

[Sooda]

I am not worried because we are a population of a billion cricket hungry crazy people. If one person gets injured there will be 10 to replace him. In the short term, this will impact the team because the quality of the replacements will not be up to the same standard as the person being replaced. In the long run however, we will have people getting used to this concept and the quality of the replacements will start to become acceptable. In other words: "Survival of the fittest" Play on!!

Thats a depressing thought! it will also mean we will lag behind the likes of the Aussies who do plan their schedules properly and ensure their key players are fitter for longer. Lee being able to bowl at 140+ at the age of 33 is a case in point. There is still a sizable market for ODIs, the happy medium between what people see as 'boring' tests and 'hit and giggle' T20's. Im not sure they can be scrapped but fewer meaningless ones- like why SEVEN versus the Aussies. Just 3 match series' maybe. That way people wont get bored of them too. Dileeps proposition for a schedule is a wise one though. Hope the BCCI are reading.

[Chandan]

BCCI HAS to plan its itinerary more professionaly where there is no ad hocism and well in advance and then the payed selectors have to rotate the players accordingly. If a player is going to do everything, what on earth are the selectors getting payed for?! So BCCI's reply that a player can ask for rest whenever he wants, doesn't cut ice. It is the job of the board and selectors to manage the resources skillfully to get maximum out of it.

[Gunner_Mania]

^ the English summer is not even over and they have already announced the iterinary for the next summer. For whatever it is worth at least the board plans the iterinary well in advance.