Recovering Australian pace bowler Jackson Bird has said he fears that the warped domestic schedule could rob aspiring pacemen of chances to press their Test claims.
The first six Shield games are compressed into seven weeks, forcing states to dust off the rest-and-rotation policy pronounced dead by Cricket Australia (CA) boss James Sutherland during the winter.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Bird, who was bowling off a shortened run-up to Australia A batsmen in the nets this week as he plots his return from back stress fractures, has voiced the concerns of many players, especially fast bowlers, about the impact of the Big Bash League (BBL) on the Sheffield Shield.
Bird said that fast bowlers could be disadvantaged by the schedule but he did not expect CA would respond to players' demands to shorten the BBL, for which free-to-air broadcaster Channel 10 has forked out 100 million dollars over five years.
Stating that fast bowlers cannot realistically play every game given that there are six Shield games in about seven weeks, Bird also said that it would be a bit frustrating for those bowlers to put their name forward to play Test cricket when they cannot get a continued run when they have got to keep resting.
Bird further said he believes that the schedule is something that needs to be looked at because a player only play professional cricket for a certain amount of years and thus would not want to miss out on games when he does not really need to.
