Australian Cricket Union Slams Schedules
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
AUSTRALIA'S alarming injury toll is proof that the crowded international program is unsustainable, the players' union said
Australian Cricketers' Association chief executive Paul Marsh said the alarming body count should serve as a wake-up call to the world cricket officials who are drawing up a new Future Tours Program to replace the existing one from 2012.
''If you ever needed evidence of the impact of such an enormous workload, we're seeing it now,'' Marsh said yesterday.
Marsh said the national teams' performances would suffer unless there was a substantial reduction in the amount of cricket.
''We haven't seen the final copy [of the new Future Tours Program] but we have seen drafts along the way and our views are that it doesn't solve the majority of the programming issues. From my discussions with Cricket Australia, I think they are looking at issues like workload and context really seriously, and that's positive, but at the moment the new FTP doesn't reflect that.''
Player representatives recently implored the ICC to address these concerns at meetings in South Africa, or risk more players retiring from Test cricket to focus on the shorter forms as England's Andrew Flintoff and New Zealand's Jacob Oram have done in recent months.
''We haven't given up hope that they will look at context and the amount of cricket,'' Marsh said. ''It [the Australian injury crisis] is just a lesson once again that international cricketers cannot sustain this level of workload. Going forward, hopefully that is something everyone will have learnt the hard way.''
Australian Cricketers' Association chief executive Paul Marsh said the alarming body count should serve as a wake-up call to the world cricket officials who are drawing up a new Future Tours Program to replace the existing one from 2012.
''If you ever needed evidence of the impact of such an enormous workload, we're seeing it now,'' Marsh said yesterday.
Marsh said the national teams' performances would suffer unless there was a substantial reduction in the amount of cricket.
''We haven't seen the final copy [of the new Future Tours Program] but we have seen drafts along the way and our views are that it doesn't solve the majority of the programming issues. From my discussions with Cricket Australia, I think they are looking at issues like workload and context really seriously, and that's positive, but at the moment the new FTP doesn't reflect that.''
Player representatives recently implored the ICC to address these concerns at meetings in South Africa, or risk more players retiring from Test cricket to focus on the shorter forms as England's Andrew Flintoff and New Zealand's Jacob Oram have done in recent months.
''We haven't given up hope that they will look at context and the amount of cricket,'' Marsh said. ''It [the Australian injury crisis] is just a lesson once again that international cricketers cannot sustain this level of workload. Going forward, hopefully that is something everyone will have learnt the hard way.''
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