India captain Rahul Dravid on Thursday made a bold statement about the busy scheduling in international cricket and said India must have a fixed annual home season.
"A lot of cricket is being played nowadays. It is going to put a lot of pressure on players and it is a question of coping. It is about devising strategies on how to cope with the amount of cricket being played and how they are going to go about it," he said.
Dravid said India must take lead from countries like England and Australia and look to host a home series annually in the winter months of November and December.
"For countries like India we don't have a set summer. England are always here in the summer, Australia are always at home in the summer. For us every year is different; we can be in different parts of the world, we can be playing in July in West Indies one year and in England some year and not playing in India in November or December, which is winter and which is where we should be playing," he said.
Having a fixed home calendar, he said, would give the team more time to prepare for matches and also help in team selection.
"It makes a huge difference I think personally from a captaincy point of view -- of managing your resources, managing your players if you know exactly where you are going to be 5-6 months in the year. For us to manage our workloads and manage our teams is a lot more different than for the teams that have the advantage of knowing exactly where they are in their cricket season," he added.
There are a lot of complaints about the busy scheduling of international cricket which has seen players traveling continuously throughout the year. Marcus Trescothick withdrew from England's squad for the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa this September after not being able to sustain the pressures of international cricket.
It is the third time in as many winter tours that Trescothick has withdrawn from England duty, following early departures from the India trip last year and the Ashes tour in November. The left-hander's is believed to be suffering from stress-related illness ever since he flew home from India 18 months back.
Dravid, however, believes that some years are tough, but players need to learn to cope with it in order to succeed at the highest level.
"Each situation varies from situation to situation and you can't compare it. I think some years can be tough, some years put a lot of pressure on you," he said.
"I don't know Marcus's situation. I think he is great cricketer and a great asset to England. And having watched the way he plays and dominates attacks over the years it is a big loss for England. I don't know his particular situation."
