Cricketers: Sportsmen Or Supermen?

Almost every sport played at the professional level has a definite season charted out before it. This in turn acts as a pre-determined timetable before the players such that they have a perfect balance of active and passive work life.

Cricket, however, is probably the only exception to this line of thought and the Cricketers are occupied with the tours most of the time unless they are unable to play due to an injury or if they are dropped from the squad.

The Cricket Tournaments from the past five to six years have increased sporadically, sometimes the events spaced back-to-back giving the players no time for rest or jet lag [in case of overseas games].

Like for example, the Australians touring India recently after the Border Gavaskar    Trophy had New Zealand touring them almost immediately and had to fly back to the Indian Subcontinent for the Champions League [though now, the Champions League is postponed officially due to the terror attack in Mumbai].

Also, if a team is unable to come all guns blazing and not reach to the expecatation, then again it is the players who are blamed and blasphemed.

Cricket with all its popularity, is undoubtedly the most time consuming sport to be played. even the newly introduced T20 matches take around four hours for completion. Nothing to boast about the ODIs and the Test matches.

Thus, the question to be asked is, why doesn't the ICC in accordance with the respective Cricket Boards do something about this? Why doesn't it preprogramme an itinery taking into consideration the players' mental and physical fitness?

And why don't the players' themselves question such a tiring, round the clock schedule? Is it the moolah which enters the Boards and the players' coffer doing all the talking or are the Cricketers in essence Super Humans in addition to being good sportsmen?