Steve Snell Urges Rob Key to regulate domestic schedule as Gloucestershire suffer injury woes

Gloucestershire head of performance Steve Snell has urged England's managing director Rob Key to look into the scheduling of domestic cricket in the country after his injury-plagued unit got thumped by Somerset this week.

Gloucestershire have been the victim of brutal scheduling and a never-ending injury list to their first-choice players in the ongoing County Championship, forcing them to dip into the loan market.

With overseas signings Mohammad Amir, Naseem Shah, and local players like Chris Dent, David Payne, Ben Charlesworth, and Tom Smith all unavailable due to a host of injuries, Gloucestershire was forced to loan Brad Wheal, Zak Chappell and Jacob Bethell ahead of their fixture against Somerset.

It eventually didn't matter, though, as Somerset hammered them by an innings & 246 runs. Following the thrashing, a disappointed Snell urged Key to address the scheduling of domestic cricket.

"It feels like everything is coming at once against us at the moment, but cricket can be a ruthless game, and we were thoroughly beaten in this match," he said as quoted by the ECB Reporters Network.

"It has been a hugely tough six weeks for us in which we have done an awful lot of fielding. Without making excuses, the schedule needs to be looked at because six four-day games back-to-back at the start of the season is too many," he added.

"There is no way you can produce the level of cricket you want to in those circumstances, and it is something for the new England managing director Rob Key to look at," he said.

Gloucestershire's fixtures have come thick and fast this season. Since their opening game against Northants on April 07, they have played as many as five games on a back-to-back basis.

Frequent injuries have added to their woes, and it's reflective of their current position in the points table with 4 defeats in 6 games.