The schedule at the top level in my sport is a real joke

THE relentless cricket schedule has been slammed as a “joke” by Ben Stokes after he retired from 50-over cricket to give himself time away from the game.

He will have made it to just one 50-over World Cup in his entire career after sacrificing that form of the game in order to extend his Test and T20 careers. And in the new Amazon Prime documentary about his life so far, Stokes opens up on just how much of a toll the treadmill of international cricket took on him.

“The schedule is so jam packed,” said Stokes (above). “It is just wrong that in the top level of sport you are looking so far ahead as to when you can stop. I know I can’t play all this cricket, it is a joke.

“The fact that series are overlapping is ridiculous. To have a Test series and one-day series going on at the same time is just mind blowing to me.

“In the latest white-ball series they had no time to train. That in itself is just ‘wow’. That should be an eye opener to people.”

There will be more clashes in future with players needing to choose carefully when and where they play and in which format.

Stokes reckons it is the entertainment package that fans are paying for that will be diminished as a result.

“Sport is an entertainment business,” he added. “And for it to be a successful entertainment business for a long period of time it needs to be the best product.

“I feel that the product isn’t giving the best entertainment because the best players aren’t always able to play at their peak, either because they need a break, they’ve been away from home for too long or their body needs a complete rest.

“That is where people putting these schedules together need to look at themselves and wonder, ‘Are we asking too much of the players to be doing this?’”