England batter Dawid Malan believes Andrew Strauss 's proposed reforms of county cricket could be a "winner for English cricket moving forward".
The ECB tasked Strauss with producing a high performance review and the ex-England captain has presented 17 keynote recommendations. One of the key reforms Strauss proposed was a reduction in County Championship and T20 Blast games.
And while many counties have already hit out at the proposals, Malan says the players need "less cricket at a higher intensity" to ensure they are at their best. "If you're a player that is trying to get better at your game, there's no time to work on your game and you're burning yourself out," he told reporters ahead of England's sixth T20I against Pakistan.
"With less cricket at a higher intensity and the ability to actually train and prepare for those games, I think your bowlers will be fitter. They will be able to bowl quicker for longer periods, it will be more challenging for batters and you can actually improve your game."
Malan also suggested the fact that England have only spent a total of 12 months as the ICC's number one ranked Test team is a sign the current domestic system is not fit for purpose.
"We can't argue that the county system is working if we've only been number one in the world for X amount of time," he added. "We've produced some world-class cricketers but it's how the English system can produce cricketers that are going to be playing cricket similar to Test cricket.
"Testing them in all conditions, so that when they do make the step up, it's not like you're having to learn on the job. If you can create something that's going to encourage people to keep playing all formats of the game, that's going to be the winner for English cricket moving forward.
"It has to make it appealing for players to still want to play four-day cricket, scheduling-wise, so there is a bit of time between games for them to rest, recover and work on their games. You don't want to lose a lot of cricket but you don't want to get to the stage where people are saying 'it's too much, and I'd rather play XYZ'."
England white ball captain Jos Buttler has also suggested less domestic cricket will help improve the international side, telling the BBC's Sports Desk podcast : "I do feel a reduction in games would allow players to prepare properly, recover properly and put a lot more emphasis on those games. The pressure on those games would be a lot higher and I think the standard could potentially be higher for that. I can see how that would see more high performance, in that sense."
