FICA meet calls on ICC to fix number of matches in a year

London, July 1 (UNI) A week before the ICC meets here to ratify the Future Tours Program (FTP), Federation Of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) held their annual general meeting and approved a model of compliance, asking for a fixed number of matches in a year, for member countries to consider at the ICC meeting.

''The above proposal represents a commonsense approach to growing concerns from not only the player base but from the game's administration,'' FICA President Tim May was quoted by Cricinfo as saying.

''The wish is to avoid excessive player workloads and to preserve the integrity and demand for the international game,'' he added.

The proposal approved by FICA said individual boards were ignoring the upper limit of matches set by the ICC for commercial gains and called for some flexibility in upper number of matches allowed per year where Test matches can be traded for ODI matches.

FICA also called on the ICC to stop the back-to-back ODI matches system and set a minimum number of days break between Tests and one dayers.

Earlier, May had criticised the ICC for not doing enough to safeguard the players' interests and warned of drug abuse among top cricketers. He called the FTP a ''disastor''.

The meeting also decided to allow countries without any players' association to appoint a representative at FICA.

''It allows countries where player associations, either politically or culturally, are unable to be established to formally appoint an individual as a representative of that international team and give their opinion on common international matters,'' May said.

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