Scrapping home-and-away compulsions won't reduce player burnout: FICA

Scrapping the home-and-away compulsions from the Future Tours Programme cannot resolve the issue of player burn-out, says the Federation of International Cricketers' Association, which wants the ICC to schedule matches in "context" to ensure manageable workload.

"(The) problem with the ICC's model and David Morgan's contention that the volume of cricket will be decreased is that because windows have been carved out for Champions League and the Indian Premier League (albeit unofficially for the IPL), international cricket will only be able to be scheduled in 42 of the weeks of the year, rather than 52," FICA Chief Executive Tim May was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.

ICC President David Morgan has said that the home and away rule, under which teams have to play each other twice over a six-year cycle, could be relaxed in the post-2012 FTP.

But May said such an arrangement would not help much because the free time on the calendar would be taken up by IPL and the Champions League.

"If you assume that the best players in the world will play IPL and then aggregate these matches with the proposed international calendar, the players will be playing more days of cricket in the period 2012-2020 than they previously did. More is not better, context is vital and the sooner ICC schedule matches according to an agreed context (annual or bi-annual championships) the better the game will be," May said.