AS ADMINISTRATORS have not hesitated to point out, players have stopped grumbling about burnout since the advent of the Indian Premier League (IPL). However, it does not mean that it is not happening and English observers will be monitoring the progress of the Australian team over the coming months for signs of mental and physical fatigue.

The current Test match in Jamaica is the first of 15 that Australia are scheduled to play in the next 10 months, along with almost 30 one-day internationals and at least six Twenty20 matches.

Overall, the international workload of the Australian players is not much heavier than that of their England counterparts in the lead-up to the Ashes in 2009. The difference is that several senior Australian players such as Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey, Andrew Symonds and Brett Lee are contracted to play in the second IPL season next April and May, before they embark on the four-month tour of England for the Twenty20 world championship and the Ashes. These players may receive no break for 12 months.

This is precisely the kind of log-jam that England are so anxious to avoid by restricting the involvement of their leading players in next year’s IPL, but Cricket Australia seem content - or, perhaps, powerless - to prevent their older players from taking India’s cash while they can.

It is only fresher faces such as Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin who appear prepared to pace themselves by turning down the IPL. The danger of playing so much cricket without proper rest lies in the possibility that Ponting’s long-standing back problem recurs, Lee’s left ankle gives way, Symonds’s right shoulder collapses or Hayden aggravates the Achilles tendon problem which surfaced in the IPL and put him out of the Jamaica Test.

Indeed, if some of the senior players in the Australian squad, such as 36-year-old Hayden, want to be injury-free for next summer’s Ashes, they may have to reconsider their playing commitments. Shane Warne took the decision to retire from ODIs at the end of 2002-03 to prolong his Test career, played on until the end of the 2006-07 Ashes and finished with 708 Test wickets.

Cricket Australia has resisted calls to review its policy of allowing Australia’s players to compete in the IPL in light of Hayden’s injury. “We were always conscious that injury was one of the risks with playing in the IPL,” Cricket Australia public affairs spokesman Peter Young said. “Having said that, it is possible that Hayden may be where he is now even if he hadn’t gone to the IPL.” The Australian team physiotherapist Alex Kountouris said: “Hayden is not the only one with tendon problems in the team. You would find at least half of them would have some sort of tendon injury. Some people get away with them and some don’t.”

Others such as Stuart MacGill, who is not involved in the IPL but has suffered a string of stress-related injuries, may simply find Australia’s Test-match programme too arduous to withstand.

Australia’s tour of the Caribbean ends on July 6, after which they have a break of eight weeks. They then host Bangladesh for three ODIs played in the space of seven days in Darwin.

Then comes the really tough part: the Champions Trophy in Pakistan and a four-Test tour of India before home series of Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s against New Zealand and South Africa running from November to February. Straight after that, Australia leave for a three-Test tour of South Africa that does not end until April.

By then, Australia might be willing to take up Warne on his suggestion that he come out of retirement for the Ashes.