Future Ashes series to be rescheduled

Ashes Test series in Australia are set to be rescheduled so they don't take place just before the World Cup, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board has announced.

David Collier said he was in discussion with his Cricket Australia counterpart, James Sutherland, and they would soon be putting forward proposals to their respective boards. Collier insisted England were "locked in" to their current programme until 2011 because of agreements already in place with other boards.

England are due to host an Ashes series in 2013. Breaking the cycle so the next Ashes in Australia didn't lead up to the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand could see them played in 2012. But Collier said clashing with the London Olympics in 2012 would be "suicide" and that the series would be shifted forward instead to 2014.

England have never won the World Cup and there is a feeling within English cricket their chances were being hampered by a lead-in of a busy home programme followed by an Ashes tour. Australia's hectic summer of cricket in 2006-07 did not seem to affect their World Cup efforts, however, as they went through the tournament undefeated.