Time to cut down for players?

Recent high profile cases of what appear to be player burn out (Marcus Trescothick and Shahid Afridi) have led some to call for a major cut back on the amount of international games played.

But do we need to cut back on the amount of games played, or the amount of games played by individual players?

Allow me to explain.

In the recent World Baseball Classic tournament, pitchers were limited to a strict pitch count, ie. they could only pitch a certain amount of times in each game, and couldn’t play two games in a row. I think something similar to this could be implemented in cricket.

With teams shoe-horning extra fixtures into nearly every gap created by the FTP, and the increasing trend to play back-to-back tests, without tour games inbetween to gave players a rest, means that player burn-out could become a serious issue in future.

I say the ICC should introduce a playing condition that states how much international cricket a player can play each year. Don’t limit the amount of matches, but the number of days, wether in Tests or ODIs. Something around 70 should be fine, limiting a player to, for example, 10 tests and 20 ODIs in each year. A Twenty20 game would count as half a day.

Rules should also be introduced to ensure that players get sufficient time off. Let’s say if a player plays more than half his quota in a 6 month period, he then gets a month away from cricket.

I think rules similar to this, if properly implemented, could reduce the issue of player burn out, and help keep the quality of the game at a high level.

A good idea at the time

Cricinfo has a good article detailing the various ideas that have been tried out in cricket. It appears that crap new ideas have been around for more than 100 years, so it’s not just today’s administrators who are idiots.

To Sub or Not to Sub

via Cricinfo - Different Strokes

The scrapping of the supersub rule has seen positive reactions from most, but did it really just need some modification?

Writing for Cricinfo’s Different Strokes Blog, Angshuman Hazra says:

Can cricket afford to be so regressive in this day and age? Who knows, a proper implementation of that rule may have ensured that the traditionally skilled cricketers - those who are not in the bits-and-pieces mould - add more to the shorter version than they are otherwise allowed to. In other words, vitalising droplets of quality could be added to the sometimes monotonous brew of one-dayers.

For instance, McGrath and Warne could have adorned the one-day game for a few more years through this rule. So could have Tendulkar, Harmison and Shoaib in the future, as age starts catching up on them. On a smaller scale, Ashish Nehra could be the missing new ball partner to Irfan Pathan that India are constantly on the lookout for.

Maybe a little modification of the supersub rule was all that was really required.

I agree with him. Surely the best solution was to adopt the 12-a-side model from the ING Cup in Australia, where 11 field and 11 bat?

Mark Waugh’s ideas for the one day game

Mark Waugh has written in the Sydney Morning Herald of his ideas for improving the one day international game.

Link to article

I agree with most of them, with the exception of rule 3.

Rule 5, I’d go further and say that the fielding side should be given the option of a new ball after 25 overs, which they must take by the 35th over.