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England's Test captain, Ben Stokes, believes that the sport's scheduling is harming the sport's quality. Stokes announced his retirement from one-day internationals in the summer, citing the fact that it was "unsustainable" for him to play in all three formats.

"It really has an impact on the multi-format players and people who want to play all three forms," Stokes, who played a key role in England's 50-over World Cup victory in 2019, said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

“Obviously you want international cricket to be at the highest standard whenever you possibly can but over the last few years I think you’ve seen a lot of different squads being picked, a lot of different players coming in, coming out, being rested.

“And I don’t think that’s the way for international cricket to go. The scheduling and everything like that I think just doesn’t get as much attention given to it as it should. A great example is England’s one-day series against Australia after the T20 World Cup. That was shoving three games in there. It made sense to someone to schedule a series which meant nothing.

“Some people say: ‘You are playing for England, that should be enough.’ But there is a lot more to factor in.”

England has won the last three Test series since Stokes took over as captain and Brendon McCullum took over as coach in 2022. Their commitment to attacking cricket has revitalized the team, and the renewed interest in the format has been encouraging for Stokes.

“Over the last few years we’ve seen Test cricket be spoken about in a way which I don’t like, losing its attention to the fans and everybody with all the new formats and the T20 franchise competitions around the world,” said Stokes on the programme guest-hosted by Ian Botham.