Alex Hales criticizes domestic schedule
After an unfortunate end to the NatWest T20 Blast group stage, England's domestic schedule was heavily criticized by Alex Hales, one of the leading T20 players of the tournament. Six of the eight group stage games were washed out that led to several teams progressing to the quarter-finals due to no results.
Alex Hales, no. 3 ranked batsman in the world in T20 format by ICC, let out his disappointment on twitter after Nottinghamshire's hopes to reach to final eight were foiled by relentless rain at Grace Road. He also criticized the way the format is currently being played, with most fixtures scheduled on Friday evenings in the month of May, June and July, while the championship rounds taking place from Sunday to Wednesday.
He claimed that the schedule was "detrimental to skill level" and suggested that the matches should be played in a block, as was the case till 2014.
"Very disappointing way to get knocked out, but only ourselves to blame. Haven't been consistently good enough," he wrote, in the first of a series of tweets.
"Hopefully we can play it in a block next year too. Much better format. I'd be amazed if one cricketer in the country enjoys this schedule. Changing formats every week is detrimental to skill level. Imagine the next Ashes series playing Test match followed by an ODI two days after then a T20 the day after that. Then repeat!", he tweeted.
Nottinghamshire finished a Championship fixture in Horsham on Tuesday, then travelled to Leicester for their final T20 fixture on Friday followed by a match against Warwickshire in the opening round of the 50-over Royal London Cup on Saturday.
England's international players Jason Roy and Tim Bresnan agreed with Hales' remarks. Roy retweeted saying, "couldn't agree more", and Bresnan replied saying, "agree with you too".
ECB's research as to what fans wanted led to the relaunch of the NatWest T20 Blast to be played in a regular Friday night slot. Prior to this, Friends Life t20 and Twenty20 Cup were scheduled in a block mid-summer, which was vulnerable to spells of bad weather.
Tom Harrison, England Cricket Board's chief executive is supervising a full-scale review of the domestic game. The results of the review are expected to be announced by the end of the current season.