Melbourne, Dec.5 : Cricket Australia and the players' union are working towards a revised policy on player workloads to ease fears that stars will decline national contracts to earn big money in flourishing Twenty20 leagues.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting believes it is unrealistic to expect players to compete in all three forms of the game unless they can be rested for some fixtures, and player union boss Paul Marsh endorses it by citing that in the coming 19 months Australia are scheduled to play 26 Tests, 54 one-day internationals and 27 Twenty20 games.

"We need to look at better management of players or prioritisation of games, not only so that players are performing the best they can on the field but so they are keeping their personal lives together off the field," news.com.au quoted Marsh, as saying.

Players remain adamant they do not want to be rested for Tests, but the unprecedented workload means CA and its selectors will again have to wrestle with the contentious issue of resting players from limited-overs games, a practice that has created controversy in the past.

Ponting, who turns 34 this month, has called on Cricket Australia to protect those who play all three forms of the game leading into important series such as the 2009 Ashes.

"There are probably half a dozen [or] seven guys in the side right now that are playing all three forms of the game and I'm pretty sure you'll see those guys managed as best as we possibly can leading into some of the biggest series that we've got," Ponting said.

His most immediate predecessors, Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor, each held the Test captaincy for five years, a milestone he will reach in February, and Taylor has said five years is a sensible limit given the intense physical and mental demands of the job.

ANI