The organisation of tours is up to the host nation and the agreement of the visitor.

The ICC Future Tours agreement DECIDED BY NATION BOARDS only ensures that Team X will play Team Y at a certain time in a certain year.

The only other criteria is that a full tour consist of a minimum of 2 Test and 3 ODIs. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

So if a certain tour is too long in anyone's opinion, it is the fault of the host nation and/or the touring nation for agreeing to those terms.

The ICC are proposing or have changed their tour cycle from 5 to 6 years and this is an attempt to lessen the number of games played.

However, you can bet that individual board will just use it as an attempt to make tours longer with more games in those tours.

As someone who likes cricket, I like both forms of the game.

All I like to see on tour itineraries is that the two forms are never mixed. i.e. tour and competitive one day games are over before the warm up 3 day games and the Tests or vice versa.

I also think long tours are a joke. A team has no business being in another country for 3 months or so. Those long English tours are a thing of the past and good riddance to them.

The 1995 tour of England by the West Indies had a first game starting on 13th May and the last game on the 3rd September including a 3 day game and a 40 over match vs Yorkshire AFTER 6 Tests.

Their tour in 2000 was just a few weeks shorter.

Waste of time.

I find it funny how some players will spend 4-6 weeks away from home and get "homesick" yet want someone to tour their country for almost 3 months!!

As for sport not being a business......

A noble ideal some might say but far from reality.

This is a professional sport with some players signed to professional central (retainer) contracts from their nation's governing body.

Coming from a system with resources put into it by said governing body.

All of that requires money.

Now unless you want to have cake sales and raffles, a business it is to stay.