England opener Rory Burns claims the county cricket schedule is "unsustainable"

04/07/2022

Rory Burns believes the current county cricket schedule is "unsustainable", with four competitions now being played across the domestic season following the introduction of The Hundred.

Burns, who was axed by England following a lean Ashes series, believes the jam-packed schedule makes it difficult for players to excel as they are asked to constantly switch between red and white ball cricket during the season. The Surrey skipper also feels the amount of games does not allow ground staff to prepare the best pitches or quicker bowlers to thrive in the County Championship.

Speaking on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast , Burns said: "The volume of cricket we play in general is probably too much. You're probably asking too much of groundsmen.

"You're probably asking too much of your players to bowl at better speeds and promote that on slightly flatter surfaces and promote guys that potentially might not do as much with it, but when you go to places like Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, hit the pitch harder so they get a bit more out of it.

"The volume of cricket we play in the county game, and now with The Hundred, it's probably marginally unsustainable. To actually get guys taking the park as close to as fit as they can be, particularly from a seamer's point of view, and to get guys in their best mindset to go and score runs."

Burns' recent struggles with England that led to him getting dropped began with a poor series against India, which saw him make just 183 runs at an average of 26.14. However, the opener entered that series having almost exclusively played T20 cricket, with just two rounds of County Championship matches occurring in between the end of the New Zealand series in June and the start of the India series in August.

"I think it is something that maybe gets looked past," Burns added about the effects of switching between red and white ball cricket. "It's easy to say this bloke has scored this amount of runs or taken this many wickets or that many catches.

"It's a lot more difficult to have a more realistic view of things. 'He's playing a Twenty20, he's travelling the next day, he's playing another Twenty20.' I remember that being my month after the New Zealand series leading into the India series, I was playing white-ball cricket, day-on/day-off Twenty20s and travelling in between.

"It's the slightly less glamorous side of the game, and probably one that isn't reported on or thought about as much. Touring now, guys trying to make up for that Covid period, there's just so much cricket on."

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