Former Test skipper Mark Taylor has branded cricket’s overcrowded schedule almost impossible to fix as some of Australia’s World Cup heroes play a meaningless T20 series against India.
The 59-year-old batting great lashed out over the seemingly never-ending list of fixtures as the Aussies struggled through yet another series after already touring England, South Africa and India in addition to winning the sport’s biggest limited-overs trophy in a draining nine months of competition.
Australia have lost the first two games of the T20 series in India as Cup squad members including Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell and Adam Zampa toil away with the summer’s Test series against Pakistan due to begin on December 14.
Former Aussie Test skipper Mark Taylor doesn’t see a way around cricket’s relentless schedule, which is resulting in sub-par contests like Australia’s current T20 series against India
Marcus Stoinis (pictured) and other Aussie World Cup stars are still playing on the subcontinent – but with big names like David Warner and Pat Cummins giving the series a miss, Taylor points out the T20 contests aren’t ‘the best playing the best’
Taylor has been left unimpressed by the standard of play and the scheduling of the contests.
‘There’s no doubt a bit of a hangover there, these five T20 matches against India certainly haven’t got the same importance, I think, from anyone’s point of view as the World Cup final,’ he told radio station 2GB.
Asked about the relentless schedule that has left fans overdosing on the game, he said, ‘I think it’s almost unfixable, to be totally honest.
‘There’s a lot of different people pulling the game [in] different ways.
‘There’s people … that want to see more Test cricket. Then you’ve got this new kid on the block, T20, you’ve got leagues springing up everywhere, not just the IPL [India Premier League] or the Big Bash here in Australia, you’ve got American leagues, Saudi leagues, Caribbean leagues, Pakistan leagues.
‘There’s leagues that are going to spring up all the time and they’re very attractive to play [in].
‘Then you’ve got a World Cup that only a few weeks ago everyone had written off as unimportant but all of a sudden once we [Australia] were into it, thought, hey, this is pretty good cricket.
India’s Mukesh Kumar celebrates a wicket in the series against the Aussies – but many fans aren’t celebrating the overdose of cricket that’s resulted from the never-ending fixtures
Taylor (pictured playing for Australia in 1989) points out that new leagues like those found in the USA, Caribbean and other countries are putting more strain on the sport
‘You’ve got three formats of the game, which allows you to have so much cricket but it means that at various times, series like this one we’re seeing with the T20 will be compromised because it isn’t the best playing the best.’
A quick look at the upcoming summer schedule provides more proof of how incredibly crowded the calendar has become.
The Aussies play three Tests against Pakistan from December 14, then launch into two Tests against the West Indies from January 17, with the last day of play scheduled for January 29.
From there it’s almost straight into six one-dayers against the Windies starting on February 2 and finishing on the 13th of that month, with three more ODIs against New Zealand beginning on February 21.
