May wants less India-Aus games

The head of the international players’ union, Tim May, has called on a reduction of one-day internationals between Australia and India saying the situation has gotten completely out of control.

“They were already playing 14 one-day internationals and now they’ve thrown in another three (in Ireland),” he said.

“It’s our ongoing battle with the ICC. Australia will play India 21 times in the eight months from June this year. From the perspective of players and spectators, it’s going to dampen your interest. And it detracts from the commercial value of the product. Vision has been lost about what’s important and what is not.”

The former Australian offspinner spoke about the imbalance in the current cricketing schedules where some teams were playing too much cricket and others, not enough.

“I have no doubt there’s an issue for world cricket in that those three teams (Australia, India and England) are playing too much cricket, but at the other end of the ledger you have teams like New Zealand, the West Indies and Sri Lanka, who aren’t playing enough cricket.”

May is the current Chief Executive of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association and has been a vocal critic of players schedules in the past, warning of burnouts and related injuries.