Cricket: There's too much of a good thing

It seems ironic that the issue of player burnout is cricket's hot-button topic at a time when New Zealand is struggling to rustle up a meaningful match with anyone.

But at recent Federation of International Cricket Players' Associations (FICA) and International Cricket Council meetings, discussion centred on the amount of cricket being played by some countries.

Tim May, head of FICA, said so much cricket was being played that it could lead to cricketers using drugs like baseballers in the United States. While the comments were inflammatory and intemperate - ICC boss Malcolm Speed angrily dismissed them - there is no doubt cricket bosses in some countries are cramming more and more fixtures into an already packed calendar.

Speaking at a business forum recently, Speed said: "Two words that concern some of our stakeholders are 'burnout' and 'saturation'. They are highly emotive words [and] they are too often used in the absence of facts and evidence."

NZCPA manager Heath Mills believes international cricket is reaching breaking point, although he is anxious to make it an argument based in fact, not emotion.

He cites facts that emerged from the FICA meeting. Facts like over the next year England's cricketers will spend 240 nights abroad. Australia's top cricketers face six tours in the next 12 months. India? Even more.

"At the other end of the spectrum," Mills said, "you've got countries like New Zealand and Sri Lanka who would probably say they'd like to be playing more."

Australian vice-captain Adam Gilchrist is the highest profile cricketer to make his fears public, saying burnout could affect his team's chances of regaining the Ashes later this year.

Mills believes the wider problem is scheduling, with workload just one facet. He said the ICC gave a tacit acknowledgement that some countries were playing too much cricket by extending the period of the Future Tours Programme (FTP) from five years to six years to ease congestion. "But the big countries have gone and filled the gaps with more meaningless cricket. There are two or three boards who are just chasing every commercial opportunity with no regard to the demands on the players."

When the Herald on Sunday put the the issue of player burnout in front of New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden recently, he was sceptical about whether it was a problem.

Cricketers were, he said, all too keen to line their pockets with money on the lucrative county circuit during the off-season so they hardly had the right to complain about too much international cricket.

It is a view that holds no truck with Mills. "It's too simplistic," he said. "I don't like using this term but county cricket is like a break compared with international cricket.

"You can't compare the intensity and you still get to spend most nights at home so you can actually be with your family."

Mills said it was in NZC's best interests to investigate the issue fully and leverage it to its advantage.

If NZC lobbied the ICC to regulate the amount of cricket the top three nations - Australia, England and India - played, then New Zealand could pick up some of the slack if there was such a demand from broadcasters to screen endless cricket.

"What happens is some boards see gaps in their calendar and fill it up with meaningless cricket," he said. "There has to be a breaking point."