Richard Thompson, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, has raised concerns about cricket’s demanding schedule and its impact on player fatigue.
“Cricket arguably does play too much,” Thompson told BBC Sport. “We’re the only sport to have a World Cup every year, which I personally think is too much.”
He emphasised the need for balance, both domestically and internationally, to keep top players performing at their best. Thompson made these comments at the opening of a new all-weather cricket dome in Darwen, Lancashire.
England recently rested key white-ball players Jamie Smith and Ben Duckett for the T20I series against South Africa. This follows a tightly contested five-match Test series against India — which ended 2–2 and spanned over two months — leaving many players visibly drained.
“I’m not surprised some of the players were obviously exhausted… I can’t ever remember a five-Test series going five days in every Test. This was a one-off in the sense of ensuring the players actually had the ability to get to the end of it. But yes, there were some creaking bodies. We have to look at the schedule. We’re reducing the number of T20 Blast games we’re playing. We’re looking to potentially reduce the amount of Championship cricket.”
New investors in The Hundred have insisted on England players being available throughout next year’s tournament. However, the competition is scheduled to begin just two days after an ODI series against India and three days before the first Test against Pakistan. Thompson acknowledged the clash but said significant changes to the calendar can’t be made until the next TV rights cycle in 2028.
“This Hundred investment has come when we’re actually in the middle of a rights path that we can’t change. So we’re only three years away from being able to ensure there is a gap at the beginning and end of that period, so there isn’t a situation where the players are exhausted. Whether it’s in 50-over format or T20 format, we have a World Cup every year, so we have an exam to sit that does put white-ball players actually under more pressure,” said Thompson.
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“Where rugby or football wait every four years, we come each year, so it’s pretty unrelenting for those players. But I’m not at all worried that we’re going into a fallow period, we’ll come through this,” he added.
