Just bowl 24 balls. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

But as the injuries to Australia’s quicks stack up – with Xavier Bartlett’s side strain in the Twenty20 series against England this week the latest of them – it has got me thinking. Is T20 cricket good or bad for a bowler’s body?

Getting your body bowling fit has traditionally been about repetition and rhythm. Reproducing line and length. Maintaining energy through a long spell and then coming back the next session and doing it again.

T20 cricket puts different strains on the body. You are rarely bowling the same ball twice. You’re varying your pace and bowling cutters and slower balls.

Changing what you are going to bowl at the last split second in response to the batsman’s movement across the crease.

Asking your body to produce unnatural deliveries such as the slower-ball bouncer.

You might come on and bowl only one over early, then cool off and bowl another over or two mid-innings and then another one at the end.

Test cricket is strenuous on the body, no doubt and bowlers prepare for it.

While T20 bowlers also prepare for bowling their four overs, I honestly find it intriguing and wonder if T20 bowlers are actually the ones putting their bodies under more strain.

I’d be interested in any research on the forms of cricket bowlers are playing before their body breaks down. I know players are monitored these days so I’m sure the data is there.

There is a large number of Australian fast bowlers either injured or coming back from injury at the moment.

And the Australian summer of cricket hasn’t even started. Bartlett joins a list including Spencer Johnson, Riley Meredith, Nathan Ellis, Will Sutherland, Daniel Sams, Jhye Richardson, Lance Morris and Scott Boland.

Now, more than ever, the next generation of Australian fast bowlers will have to choose to preference either red-ball or white-ball cricket.

And that’s not just about the total workload, but the different physical requirements involved.

Australia’s big three of Cummins, Starc and Josh Hazlewood have long been the first-choice attack in all forms, but that’s probably not the norm around the world. And even they have sat out certain series, as we’ve seen in Scotland and England, as part of the juggle.

Going forward, while bowlers may not say it openly, for their own longevity, they will have to start playing it smarter and choosing formats.