ICC to investigate players' workloads

LONDON, July 8 (Reuters)

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is to investigate players' workloads after criticism of its international schedule.

In a speech to the ICC's annual business forum at Lord's on Friday, chief executive Malcolm Speed said the project was likely to compare player workloads in different eras as well as assessing injury trends. "Two words that concern some of our stakeholders are `burnout' and `saturation'," he said.

"They are highly emotive words and they are too often used in the absence of facts and evidence. "Many of the game's top players are playing fewer cricket matches than their predecessors while international cricket is in greater public and commercial demand than ever."

Last month the chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers Associations said cricketers might be forced to resort to performance-enhancing drugs because of the number of matches they were obliged to play.

Former Australia off spinner Tim May also criticised the ICC's Future Tours Programme (FTP), calling it a disaster because it put no upper limit on the amount of international cricket being played.

"A lot has been written about this FTP, some of it critical and not all of it based on facts," Speed said. "Let me say today that the FTP is fundamentally good for the game.

"Far from being concerned about the excessive volume of cricket being played by our members, we believe many of them should be looking for opportunities to programme more cricket."