Moody: Larger squads are solution to burn-out

Sri Lanka's coach, Tom Moody, has added his voice to the growing debate about player burn-out, and believes that international teams will soon have to head down the route adopted by the football Premiership, with larger squads and more rotation of players.

After a whirlwind campaign that has encompassed trips to Australia, Bangladesh and a home series in Pakistan, Sri Lanka have arrived in England for three Tests, five one-day internationals and a Twenty20 match, just two weeks after their last international fixture, against Pakistan at Kandy.

"It's a difficult thing to avoid," conceded Moody, as he spoke to the press at Sri Lanka's team hotel in North-West London, "You want your key players all the time, but the players are under enormous pressure, and it's one of those things you face. You have to accept that the best players may not play in every game of a series.

"It's a thing being addressed by the ICC and it's out of our control," he added. "But there are two approaches that can be taken. [Firstly], key players can be rested for periods of the year if the calendar stays the same, but squads have got to get bigger, [just] like is happening in soccer in this country. The more soccer they play, the bigger the squads."

England experienced the problems of fixture overload this winter, when their players started dropping like flies in India, but Moody believed their experience would have been largely beneficial.

"Put it this way, England are selecting from a bigger pool of players this summer than last summer, and that is an advantage. Even so, when you've got a settled side, you know each other's game inside out, but when people are coming and going, it's harder to get momentum.

"We've seen in the past in England, they'd use 20-plus players in a series. Those days are gone now. But it's a long time until the first Test, and I'm sure those key players will find themselves back on deck before then."