Gruelling cricket schedule is burning out our star players

Victoria captain Peter Handscomb believes cricket’s gruelling schedule is contributing to player burnout.

Nic Maddinson was due to play for Australia A before withdrawing for wellbeing reasons. Picture: AAP

Victoria captain Peter Handscomb believes cricket’s gruelling schedule is contributing to player burnout.

And a recent study of the workloads on professional cricketers reveals Australian players are among the most overworked in the world.

Handscomb, who has praised Glenn Maxwell and Nic Maddinson for talking about their struggles with mental health, says the amount of cricket being played can cause stress on players.

“It can be tough,” Handscomb told RSN. “With cricket being a 12-month-a-year game now, you can see a bit of burnout starting to come in to players.

“It is hard to stay up for such long periods of time. The stress comes in.

“Credit to both Maxy and Maddo that they’ve had the strength to step up and talk about it, and say they weren’t right, and go and get the help that’s required. That just shows really strong characters.”

Maxwell withdrew from Australia’s T20 squad last week to address his mental health concerns while Maddinson has withdrawn from Australia A’s tour match against Pakistan.

Will Pucovski was given time away from Australia’s squad last summer to deal with wellbeing matters.

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Cricket Australia says Maddinson, who has taken personal leave on a previous occasion, will be given all the support that he needs.

Cricket Monthly last month published a list of the hardest working players, revealing Australian Test batsman Marnus Labuschagne played more days of high-level cricket than anyone else in the world.

Labuschagne played 129 days of elite cricket during the survey period of October 2018 to September 2019 across first-class, List A, elite T20 and international levels.

The survey also revealed Maxwell had played more List A games than anyone else in the world. List A cricket includes one-day internationals, Australia A games, Australian tour games.

Maxwell had played 26 ODIs and 12 other List A games in the past year, on top of his Test, Sheffield Shield and T20 commitments.

Alyssa Healy was revealed to be the busiest female cricketer in the world, playing 71 days of elite cricket over 66 matches.

Handscomb said that the reason these mental health issues seem more prevalent recently is that players are now talking about an important issue which has been taboo in the past.

“I think it’s actually been there for quite a long time,” the former Test batsman said.

“I think now we’re actually seeing, because it has been talked about more, players step up and recognise that it’s in the game and that it’s actually OK to talk about it.”

AAP AND STAFF REPORTERS