• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Player Workload

howardj

International Coach
One of things that annoys me is players, and here in Australia it has got ridiculous, complaining about their workload. That player workload has increased is a proposition that nobody seems to challenge. Over the coming week, I intend to set some time aside and dig back through the archives and compare how things were a decade or more ago compared to workload today. I think the comparison will surprise you, especially considering that modern day AUstralian players play little or no domestic cricket.

It amazes me that someone like Ricky Ponting, who earns more than $1.5 million just from Cricket Australia, complains about how hard done by he is in terms of workload. I would just like to know one person who earns that amount in any other field of endevour who does not have to endure stresses and strains. Yes, there does need to be a cap put on the number of games each year, but if you average it out, I doubt over a four year cycle players would play 15 Tests and 30 ODIs over the course of the year. What's so arduous about that?

Anyway, I will keep you apprised of my research findings. :)
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
It might just be my perception, but up here at least there seems to have been a good deal less whinging about workloads since the IPL came onto the scene.
 

howardj

International Coach
True.

Anyway, I intend to expose this player workload scam, if it's the last thing I do.

How much cricket did AB play back in the early to mid-1990s?

That's what I intend to uncover, right down to the day, and I will not rest until I do.

lol
 

Sir Alex

Banned
I think players from the subcontinent have handled much more workload for more than a decade (since ODIs became the staple) without much whingeing.
 

howardj

International Coach
Some preliminary findings have come to hand…

Allan Border played nine FC games during the Aussie Summer of 1992/1993 – at most Ponting will play six (all the Tests) or seven (maybe one Shield game) this Summer.

More findings as they come to hand :)
 

Johnners

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
In a 20 year career, Border played a total of 767 matches. Ponting has played 659 coming into the start of his 18th year.
 

four_or_six

Cricketer Of The Year
And yet since Ponting did get a week off to rest, he has been awesome.

I'm sure they would have got some bigger gaps in the past, rather than such stretches of continuous cricket.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
I agree with Howard. It annoys me to bits.

However from my listening to commentators and journalists here in Australia, they are blaming the ICC for allowing the IPL to dominate, and then had a whinge about the Champions League and Ind/Aust 7 match series.

All those injuries of course put fuel to the fire, but many of those injuries (not all of course) were sheer bad luck. You can't tell me Ferguson, Hopes or Brett Lee (who didn't play the Ashes) was down to workload.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
The number of nights in hotels away from family and number of hours on a plane flying around the globe would have mushroomed however. FC matches in the UK, you're travelling what, 3 hours absolute tops to get to a venue and can duck home between matches. In Oz, again it's not nearly as big a hassle travelling interstate for half your FC matches as it is travelling to England or India for two months.

That amount of travel really cuts into physical and mental recovery time.

Plus back then, international matches generally meant something. You didn't go from one meaningless T20 tourney to an Ashes series to a overblown 7 match ODI series to another meaningless ICC tournament, this time ODI, then to another meaningless 7 match ODI series before returning to Australia to commence ANOTHER test series a week after coming back.

Plus FC matches simply aren't as arduous for international players as internationals. It's a very rare occurence that performance in a FC match will affect an incumbent international's chances of selection, so it's a chance to get some less pressured match practice in, to help them work on issues with their game and frankly to relax and play it as a game away from public and much selectorial pressure. Missing that there's rarely a chance for a player in a slump like Hussey's for instance to go work it out and get some touch back.

I think most players would be happy if they could trade some of the international fixtures for some
domestic ones. And still feel like they had received a cut in the workload.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
The number of nights in hotels away from family and number of hours on a plane flying around the globe would have mushroomed however. FC matches in the UK, you're travelling what, 3 hours absolute tops to get to a venue and can duck home between matches. In Oz, again it's not nearly as big a hassle travelling interstate for half your FC matches as it is travelling to England or India for two months.
.
Slightly annoyingly pedantic of me, but England isn't so small that you can travel from one end to the other in three hours! When Durham play Somerset you're probably looking at about 8 hours there and then the same again back
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
WTF? You do have motorised cars over there that can exceed 15mph don't you? Durham to Taunton is 450 kilometres. The drive from Melbourne to Canberra, door to door, not just on the highway, takes seven hours and is 750 kilometres.

Call it 5 hours for frigging around in town, but really, the UK is the size of Victoria and you can't drive for eight hours anywhere that small.

And that is presumably the most extreme example you can come up with.
 
Last edited:

four_or_six

Cricketer Of The Year
WTF? You do have motorised cars over there that can exceed 15mph don't you? Durham to Taunton is 450 kilometres. The drive from Melbourne to Canberra, door to door, not just on the highway, takes seven hours and is 750 kilometres.

Call it 5 hours for frigging around in town, but really, the UK is the size of Victoria and you can't drive for eight hours anywhere that small.

And that is presumably the most extreme example you can come up with.
Google maps has Durham to Taunton as 5h15. Would have thought it would take longer than that if you hit any traffic. You need at least an hour just to get round Birmingham.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
How did you guys ever have an Empire? 8-)

EDIT: After a minute, that feels like it came out harsher than was meant. Consider a "jk" added to the bottom.

My point remains though. You're still in YOUR country, you haven't had to fly anywhere, and you're away for four or five days and get a chance to get home again between matches. And I'd imagine a lot of the time, you're travelling much less distance.
 
Last edited:

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Plus back then, international matches generally meant something. You didn't go from one meaningless T20 tourney to an Ashes series to a overblown 7 match ODI series to another meaningless ICC tournament, this time ODI, then to another meaningless 7 match ODI series before returning to Australia to commence ANOTHER test series a week after coming back.
Come on Matt, its only meaningless in your eyes though.

You can't tell me that those teams didn't want to badly win the T20 Cup. Look how upset SA were when they stuffed up again, despite having been in terrific form for 12 months beforehand.

That T20 cup meant more than the 5 match ODI series between Aus and SA both home and away. That's for sure.

And I'm not that big a T20 guy.

I'll also argue that everytime there is a 'classic match' on Fox Sports showing a random Benson & Hedges ODI tri-series match from the 80s, those could be pretty damn meaningless too. And the players were on a lot less money then!
 
Last edited:

Matt79

Global Moderator
It meant not nearly as much as the one that had been held barely 18 months earlier. The reason the WC for a long time meant a lot was because it was once every four years that all the teams got together and ence it was a once or twice a career opportunity for most players. There's a major ICC tournament on once every year now - winning one simply doesn't mean as much.

But ignoring my admittedly biased views of the worth of the specific tournaments themselves, which is in a sense neither here nor there, the sheer volume of those tournaments and series devalue ALL the matches, in the eyes of the players and of the fans.

To take your example of ODIs in the 80s - they meant something because the players and the fans considered them important. For now, what does Australia's win vs India actually mean to fans of either nation. Aussie fans have barely had a chance to digest the loss of the Ashes. We're WC and CT champions already, but still underperformers in T20. We're playing games that were barely reported on in the local media and not on FTA tv and hence that the large majority of fans here don't care about. For Indian fans, what, are you guys seriously bummed that you lost this series? We've both got yet another series starting within a week or two, and the conveyor belt just keeps on rolling. Deprived of an opportunity reflect on the past, or to build up any anticipation before the next challenge and with an interminable grind of matches between teams we've seen play each other so many times or of mismatches against teams that don't merit inclusion in the top tier.

I love the actual game but as a sport it might look bigger than ever, but it's like a morbidly obese guy sitting there eating one cheeseburger after another. It's not healthy or sustainable. The sport is going to look massively different in ten years time and we'll all come to regret the change IMO.
 
Last edited:

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
I just reckon the media loves sticking the boot into cricket now and fans are eating up all the doomsday stuff. Cricket will never have a 'league' or a 'tally' that will mean every match is do or die. Its not how the sport works, and it didn't work that way in the 70s or 80s either.

I guarantee you India were shattered they lost that 350 chase. I agree that best of 7 series are ****, and they should never happen, but what else should occur other than bi-lateral ODI cricket series?

Cricket doesn't have an off season, and nor should it. There are too many countries with various weather seasons for it to have one.

To be honest, only Australia seems to be playing too much cricket lately. India haven't been that exhausted, nor have some other countries. Can't say Sri Lanka, NZ or England are being overworked.

I do agree regarding the T20 WC being every year the ODI World Cup isn't is a joke though. But the ICC are ****heads so that's that.

I'm not intending of making this into a nationality thing, but all of the cries of workload issues do seem to be coming from the Australian media, players and fans.
 
Last edited:

pasag

RTDAS
and fans are eating up all the doomsday stuff.
Has always been like this, in virtually any era of cricket whether it be early 1900s or even before. The death of cricket has always been imminent, apparently.
 

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
- ICC needs to become a proper authocratic governing body like FIFA or IOC.

- 7 match ODI series needs to be BANNED. Depending on which teams are playing each series should just have 3 ODIs & 3 T20s per tour.

- IPL needs to be revamped

- Champions League could be exapnded slightly. By including 2 teams from each nations in the competition.
 

Top