Rhodes — early start is a tester (From Worcester News)

Rhodes — early start is a tester

9:00am Wednesday 24th February 2010 in

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WORCESTERSHIRE director of cricket Steve Rhodes believes the new season is starting too early.

The 2010 campaign gets under way on Thursday, April 9, but that means counties are having to begin their practice games in March.

Worcestershire head to Essex for their first friendly on March 31 and, with the British climate unpredictable during the early spring, cricket is in the laps of the gods.

But the New Road boss says he understands why the governing bodies have opted for an early start with the Champions League Twenty20 tournament taking place in mid-September.

“I know it is difficult to put all the fixtures in there but it is going to be hard work.”

Steve Rhodes

“There are obvious reasons to why the season is starting earlier as somebody is putting up big money for some tournaments at the back of the year,” he said.

“But I do think that it is starting too early. We all saw last year that there was some good weather in October. I have never known us to start on April 9.

“I know it is difficult to put all the fixtures in there but it is going to be hard work.

“It is not just about starting early when there is a little bit of juice around, dampness and cold, but when do we play our practice games as well?

“They all have to come forward a little bit and we start a practice game against Essex in March.”

Rhodes also feels there is not enough time to review previous matches before the next game.

Despite enjoying going from game-to-game as a player, the County chief feels it would be beneficial to the coaches if they had more time to review and prepare.

“If you ask most of the coaches, they would say we have not got enough time to prepare, recover and review,” Rhodes said.

“They have a fair point but I come from an era when you played non-stop.

“I was quite used to playing day in, day out. I enjoyed the learning and the improving you tended to do out in the middle rather than the practice fields so I can see both sides of it.

“Certainly, now in the way that we prepare, the effort levels that go in to your fielding, the running between the wickets and the intensity of the game, then maybe we need a little bit more time for recovery and to review.”

He added: “As coaches we don’t have much chance to review games, we have a bit of a chance to prepare but not a lot.

“You tend to go straight from one game to another, forgetting about what happened in the last match, what you can learn from it, what you did well and what you can improve on.”