Different opinions are being added left, right and center in this thread and that's just what a forum is for. Discussion on a range of topics, sometimes turning into a hot debate. Player burn out is an issue that has raised its head more so recently than it has before and it is really a difficult thing to find a solution for because you need to do something that will please both parties, in this case the broadcasting companies and the players.
As andrew_nixon rightly says, Marcus Trescothick and Shahid Afridi are prime examples of player burn out in recent times. Trescothick seems to want family connections to be more available, and Afridi just wants to concentrate on one part of the game and improve his technique and way of doing things.
The only solution I can see to the first problem is limiting winter tours to just one. England's winter tours over late 2005 and early 2006 have been in Pakistan and India. Don't get me wrong, they look like wonderful countries with great cricket teams and tremendous culture, but the fact is the players don't like being away from home for so long and playing so much cricket. You can give the teams five star hotels and anything they requested for the entirity of the tour but it's just not the same as being at home.
So if England had only toured Pakistan this winter then the players would have a good few months to recharge the batteries, see family and friends and generally live life before starting work again. After the break, the players would begin training again and maybe play a few domestic matches, increasing the popularity of domestic cricket early on in the season and increasing demand for television coverage of it.
Shahid Afridi's solution is extremely difficult. Just what to do? You could call me a cricket traditionalist in saying that I enjoy test cricket and believe it to be the best form of the game, but others may see it the other way around and just like to play one-dayers. Fine. But Shahid Afridi as far as I know has never expressed a want to temprorarily retire from test cricket, he's rather been forced to. He really wanted to play a few domestic one-day matches in my opinion, work in the nets on his attacking ways but still continue playing tests for Pakistan. Trouble is that whenever a test series is over, Afridi doesn't have much time to work on his one-day game as another back-to-back test series is normally no more than three weeks away. That's my opinion on it though.
All in all, I don't think that there is many ways to cater for the players needs whilst rolling in the cash for the television companies at the same time. Fact is though, the governing body has to do something about this issue sooner or later or the true greats like Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne may be forced to retire a lot sooner than planned.