Back-to-back Ashes series from 2013 to keep fans, coffers full

SYDNEY - Cricket Australia has confirmed that there will be back-to-back Ashes series from 2013 and Australia will not have to wait for long to regain the urn should they lose again in England that year.

In what is shaping as a bumper few years for Australian cricket fans and CA’s coffers, the rivals will play 10 consecutive Tests in two separate series in the second half of 2013 and early 2014.

England will host the 2013 series then head over to Australia a few months later for a return bout, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The anomaly has been attributed to Australia hosting the 2015 World Cup during the 2014-15 season which is, according to conventional scheduling, when England would be next due to play for the urn on these shores.

Should the Ashes and the World Cup be staged during the same Australian summer, the England side would have to stay in the country for up to five months, a scenario the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is keen to avoid.

The Herald reports that under original plans, drawn up when working back from the 2015 World Cup, England would have hosted an Ashes series next year. This would have allowed 18 months between series but clashed with the London Olympics.

This clash forced authorities to push that series forward a year, resulting in consecutive Ashes series.

“We do have those two Ashes series that are back to back,” CA spokesman Peter Young said.

“One concern that England had, which is understandable in 2015 if they’d played Ashes then the World Cup, the England team would have to stay in Australia for five months - that’s just way too long,” he said. (ANI)