“We are not cars,” says Ben Stokes on ECB’s packed schedule since June 2022
Ben Stokes has cautioned cricket officials to refrain from scheduling too many games and treating players like “cars.”
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Ben Stokes recently announced his retirement after today’s (19th July) game against the South Africa at the Chester-le-Street.
Ben Stokes earlier stated “As hard as a decision as this was to come, it’s not as hard dealing with the fact that I can’t give my teammates 100% of myself in this format anymore. The England shirt deserves nothing less from anyone who wears it.”
The 31-year-old, who recently assumed leadership of England’s Test team, said that playing all three formats of the game was “unsustainable” for him given his physique and his busy schedule and that he will now be concentrating his emphasis on Tests and T20s
Ben Stokes has cautioned cricket officials to refrain from scheduling too many games and treating players like “cars.” With as many as 17 cricket days in July alone, England has been playing nonstop cricket over the past few months. Next month, they will play South Africa in a three-match Test series.
“We are not cars. You can’t just fill us up and we’ll go out there and be ready to be fuelled up again. We had a Test series and then the one-day team had a series going on at the same time – that was a bit silly,” Stokes told Test Match Special.
“I just feel like there is too much cricket rammed in for people to play all three formats now. It is a lot harder than it used to be. I look back to when I used to do all three and it didn’t feel like it was as jam-packed and all that. Obviously you want to play as much cricket as you possibly can but when it is making you feel tired, sore and you’ve got to look towards five or six months down the road for what you’re doing in the here and now it is probably not the best thing.
“The more cricket that is played, the better for the sport, but you want a product that is of the highest quality. You want the best players to be playing as much as you possibly can, all the time, and it isn’t just me or us. You see it all around the world now where teams are having to rest some players in a certain series so they feel like they are getting a break,” he said.