If I had a pound for every time a county pro or coach has said there is too much cricket and travelling, then I would be pretty rich. I would currently be sat on a beach somewhere tropical, no doubt. I have been covering county cricket for the last five seasons, so I guess this is not a new revelation. But Durham’s recent plight has really brought the issue to the forefront of my mind.

In fact, I would go as far as saying that their fixture pile-up, and horrendous travelling schedule, has probably cost them the chance of winning a second Friends Provident Trophy title in the space of three years.

As we speak, the current county champions are out of the running for a place in the last eight.

Including yesterday, the North East county have played cricket in two competitions on eight days out of the last ten at both ends of the country.

Last Wednesday they played a four-day County Championship match against Sussex at Hove – a draw that ran through to Saturday night.

On Sunday they had a Friends Provident Trophy Group ‘C’ fixture against Gloucester at Bristol before another one on Monday against Sussex back at Hove.

Are you getting tired thinking about the travelling? I certainly am. But it doesn’t stop there.

Back up the motorway they came to Headingley for Wednesday’s FPT match against Yorkshire before setting off again on Thursday for yesterday’s penultimate group match against Surrey at the Oval.

I do not envy the fixture compilers at the ECB for one minute – after all they have a lot to deal with in terms of requests from counties over the scheduling of things like festival matches and concerts at grounds.

But in this instance, there were one or two things that could have surely been done to ease the load on Will Smith’s side.

Durham played at Gloucester on Sunday and Sussex on Monday. Why could those games have not been switched around? Durham could then have played Sussex the day after the Championship game finished before heading back North to face the Group ‘C’ leaders.

Yorkshire, who ended up playing Gloucester on Monday, could have played that game on Sunday.

It certainly left Yorkshire’s director of cricket, Martyn Moxon, frustrated, to say the least. “I feel great sympathy for Durham,” he said.

“It was bad enough for us, but at least we managed to get a day off in between (the Championship match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston on Saturday and the Gloucester fixture).

“It’s just a nonsense what Durham have had to do. What can we do?

“It’s disappointing because there is a chance of getting to a Lord’s final. In the game that mirrors international cricket, Durham are having to go backwards and forwards to play back-to-back games.

“They had just finished a four-day game, then it was travel, play, travel, play again, travel and play again. That is a tough ask.

“I am not trying to make excuses for anybody, but it is not a good situation to have to ask anybody to do that. This is a major competition we have, and one that mirrors international cricket.”

Whether it has cost Durham their place in the last eight, nobody will ever know for sure. But I do not think it is coincidence that, as we speak, they are currently talking about fighting on three fronts rather than four.

The nationalising of the Friends Provident Trophy groups has not helped anybody. The travelling is greater, while there is also less scope for the crowd-pleasing matches such as Roses fixtures.

And nationalising Twenty20 will take place from next year with the introduction of the two-tier league. The three qualifiers from each of the three groups this year will make up Division One, while the non-qualifiers will make up Division Two.

A lot of things have moved on in the game of cricket, but I cannot help but think that the days of splitting the first three days and the last day of a Championship match with a one-day game against the same county were the best.

It would not work all the time, but it would quite a lot of the time to ease the burden.