"There's just so much cricket on" - Rory Burns labels volume of county cricket as 'unsustainable'

Discarded England opener Rory Burns has criticized the volume of cricket played at the county level and stated that it's too much for the players. The southpaw also believes that English first-class cricket doesn't prepare players for Test matches.

England's domestic season began on Thursday as the national team's stars returned to action after a disappointing winter. Following England's numerous batting collapses in the West Indies and Australia, the county cricket system has come under the scanner.

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Speaking on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast, Burns believes with The Hundred tournament on the schedule, players are playing plenty of cricket. The Surrey batter highlighted that the window between traveling and recovering to switch between formats has been a massive challenge. He said:

"There's just so much cricket on. The volume of cricket we play in the county game, and now with The Hundred, it's probably marginally unsustainable. It's easy to say this bloke has scored this amount of runs or taken this many wickets or that many catches. It's a lot more difficult to have a more realistic view of things."

He added:

"He's playing a Twenty20, he's travelling the next day, he's playing another Twenty20. I remember that being my month after the New Zealand series leading into the India series, I was playing white-ball cricket, day-on/day-off Twenty20s and travelling in between."

The T20 Blast will commence before the international fixtures, beginning in the final week of May. England's home summer starts with a two-Test series against New Zealand in June, followed by a white-ball rubber against India. South Africa's tour of England begins in mid-July, while The Hundred will kickstart in August.

"Facing Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Lyon is fractionally different to what you get in the county game" - Rory Burns

The left-hander further claimed that county cricket only promotes bowlers who can swing or nibble the Dukes ball to perfection. Hence, they tend to struggle in the Test arena. The 31-year old added:

"Our county cricket promotes skills-based bowlers that can swing the ball or nibble the ball on green surfaces with a Dukes ball, which obviously suits our own conditions and fulfils the needs of counties at times, rather than actually promoting guys to the Test arena. Facing Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Lyon is fractionally different to what you get in the county game."

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Rory Burns is clean bowled by Mitchell Starc with the first ball of the 2021/22 Ashes.

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Burns, who debuted in Test cricket in 2018, has struggled for quite some time at the top level. The selectors axed him for the recently-concluded West Indies tour as the hosts won 1-0. He will certainly need a productive season to regain his spot.