Root: Cricket schedule must change for player safety

Cricketers have called for changes to county championship scheduling amid concerns around player safety.

Research gathered by the Professional Cricketers’ Association found that 81 per cent of cricketers said the fixture list caused physical concerns, while 76 per cent were worried about unsafe travel after a tight turnaround between games.

The PCA completed research during pre-season meetings with all 18 first-class counties and found that 66 per cent of players believe too much cricket is played in county cricket across the summer.

England all-rounder Joe Root, who has featured for Yorkshire in the early stages of the county summer, is among the big names to express concern at the congested schedule.

“I am extremely passionate about county cricket and it is apparent the schedule needs to change for a host of reasons to see long-lasting benefits for English cricket,” he said.

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“County cricket is the breeding ground for some of the best talent in the game and this requires world leading structures to allow players to reach their full potential. This is a benefit for everybody in the game.

“We’re trying to find a way of getting the standard of first class cricket as close to the international game as we can.

“There’s a large number of players that don’t think the schedule is conducive to high level performance as it stands right now, we need to find a way of making it that gap smaller and the product better.”

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Joe Root will continue to play for Yorkshire throughout the 2024 County Championship season after missing out on T20 World Cup selection

Root added: “There’s so much cricket and there’s so much to cover. It’s not always going to be perfect, we know that, but if there’s any way of finding a middle ground and meeting somewhere closer to the middle where the players are safer and the output of the games is of a higher quality, then English cricket will be winning.

“Having space to recover, prepare and improve your game during the season is crucial and the creation of minimum standards to protect travel windows and player welfare is non-negotiable.”

The PCA also found that 10 per cent of cricketers accessed their mental health services over the course of the year and chief operating officer Daryl Mitchell believes this is partly due to the relentless of the schedule and in the long-term affects the standard of play.

“From my own experiences of being a batter, the back-to-back nature of the sport is tough,” Mitchell said.

“If you’re going through a run of poor form, you don’t have the time to practice and work on your own game, particularly in red ball cricket.

“The days that you do have off you tend to be resting and this doesn’t allow your game to get in better shape.

“A reduction in cricket has to be strongly looked at as the solution which the game desperately needs.”

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Joe Root was an important part of England’s Test side earlier this year, hitting his 31st Test hundred against India in Ranchi

There is a concern that if less cricket is played throughout the season it could negatively impact the standards of the sport throughout the country. However, ex-England captain Root believes it will have the opposite effect.

“By reducing the amount of cricket that’s played, there would be more recovery and preparation time and with that the standard would go up,” Root said.

“I think it would align well with a lot of stuff the English Cricket Board are trying to do in terms of shortening the gap between county cricket and international cricket.”

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