Thorpe has hung up his one-day boots

"When we go back over the last five years, and look forward into the next five years, I think it's fair to say 'yes', players will be playing more cricket than previously.

"But there's no rapid growth in the number of games teams are playing.

"Most teams would be playing something like 12, 13, 14 Test matches in a year [and] somewhere between 20 and 25 one-day internationals in a year."

Jagmohan Dalmiya, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), added his views to the situation.

"The schedules are too tight," Dalmiya said.

"The ICC's strenuous programme is making the situation difficult.

"The players don't have 24 hours to rest and stay in a city. They have no time to recoup but you have to fulfil commitments," he said.

New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming warned that a massive shake-up of international cricket was needed to avoid widespread player burn-out.

Fleming insisted that the overflowing number of fixtures was leading to increasing injuries and threatening the careers of leading players.

"We raised concerns about the amount of time between games," Fleming said.

"If the volume of cricket is going to remain at this level a bit more care must be taken with scheduling.

"It's not so much the Test matches I am concerned about, it is more the one-dayers and the need to put out as many as possible. It places too much demand on players."

The New Zealand captain's comments were particularly relevant after a series of leading internationals recently decided to play one or other form of cricket.

England's Graham Thorpe announced this week he was retiring from one-day internationals to focus solely on Test cricket.

Fleming insisted a compromise was needed between the Test captains and the ICC to halt others from following suit.

"We understand that in professional sport there are going to be sacrifices," he said.

"But we want the ICC to share our concerns about the amount of cricket that is being played."