With 141 international matchdays loaded into the October-December period, cricket's Plimsoll Line is under serious threat. Every Test-playing country will be battling in this frenetic period, contesting 22 Tests and 31 ODIs between them. But the thought of this particular banquet makes you wince rather than drool. The bonanza guarantees more than a few battered bodies and minds tottering into South Africa for the World Cup in February. That tournament could suffer the same fate as this year's soccer World Cup: too many of the world's best too tired or too injured to give of their best. And worse, serious fan-fatigue looms as well.

If the winter of 2002 was theoretically a cricket-lover's feast, the flies in the starters are already showing. Australia needed just ten days and a bit to mop up Pakistan 3-0 in Tests, India needed eight days to batter West Indies 2-0, and whoever planned the South Africa v Bangladesh series has a cruel sense of humour. Quality is being sacrificed for quantity.

Even the two teams that won easily earlier this week were weary and sun-scarred. Australia looked exhausted under the 50-degrees-plus desert heat of Sharjah. Meanwhile Sourav Ganguly declared that most of his players were carrying a niggle or two and rested Zaheer Khan, India's premier fast bowler, for the third Test. Time with the family is a rare perk for the modern cricketer.

The Test captains moaned about too much cricket at their get-together in June. The administrators had better start listening soon, before cricket suffers from disastrous inflation - flooding the market kills any good product. When I was younger, an Ashes series was a clash of the cricketing gods, to be discussed with awe. Now it's almost a one-sided joke, as previews for the forthcoming series resignedly prophesy.

Is there anything to look forward to in this winter's menu? Besides England in Australia, Sri Lanka are in South Africa, West Indies will travel to Bangladesh after playing seven ODIs in India, Pakistan go to Zimbabwe, and India will end the year in New Zealand. ICC and its Test Championship table have forgotten that familiarity breeds contempt.

Do you hop excitedly seeing the Test Championship table? Like the mini World Cup in Colombo, this is another idea that now seems increasingly hare-brained - especially if South Africa go top, ahead of the undoubted champions Australia, as they will if they beat Sri Lanka and Pakistan at home. Actually, wanting a Test Championship in the first place is forgetting the essential nature of Test cricket. Each five-day game is a 30-hour championship skirmish in itself, in a tournament called a series. Planning a tournament of tournaments is like scheduling an Olympics of Olympics. It rapidly loses value.

Seeing Test teams play each other at home and away in quick succession will only dilute fan interest in the long term. It would have been all right in the days before satellite TV. Indians would still have flocked to Test grounds out of curiosity - even to see the current apology for a West Indian team. But these sides were seen on TV from the Caribbean only four months ago, so it's hardly a surprise that the Chidambaram Stadium had swathes of unoccupied seats during the second Test, a rare sight in cricket-crazy Chennai.

This indiscriminate showcasing of cricket won't just affect gate receipts. Next on the dip will be TV ratings, a catastrophe for any sport's future. It's not only staleness of interest, from hearing the same voices bleating to you about the same players. But the product also suffers from having no breathing space for repairs.

Even Sachin Tendulkar needs some time for R&R to iron out occasional creases in the splendorous tapestry of his batting. This is where the occasional first-class game can help, to give respite from having one's work watched by a million eyes. Or that relaxed Sunday-afternoon game. None of my Wisden India colleagues could remember the last time Tendulkar turned out for a club game, including the resident expert on domestic cricket. One of them choked over his hot coffee at the thought. It was too shocking a question.

Postscript: Ajit S Datar, an umpire, e-mailed us the answer soon after reading this. The last time Tendulkar played a club match was in November 1997. Datar was reserve umpire in that game.

Raja M is a regular contributor to Wisden.com in India.

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