England hopeful of limited overs series with Australia

The England and Wales Cricket Board is expecting Cricket Australia to go ahead with a limited overs tour of UK in September this year according to a report in cricket.com.au. The report states that ECB is "quietly confident" of the Aussies playing in England.

The tour was initially scheduled for July this year but has been put on ice for now due to the coronavirus pandemic. The report further states that with Pakistani players testing positive for Covid-19 and their proposed tour of UK in August under the clouds, the ECB could try and increase the number of matches, although no Test cricket has been talked about yet.

England's director of cricket Ashley Giles has said that they would look to add Tests to the series against Ireland in case the Pakistan series can't go ahead.

"We'd have to look at that," Giles said when asked about the prospect of playing red-ball cricket against the Irish, as per cricket.com.au.

"Currently not, but as with this situation throughout, we've had to be agile and adapt very quickly to different situations, all of us. We would look at that if that happened."

Talking about the Australia series, Giles said,"We had a really good conference call with Australia last week. They've been one of our strongest partners for years and it continues that way. It would be great to have them here.

"Clearly if you were an Australian cricketer or member of staff looking in at the moment, there would be some nervousness. But we are doing everything to allay as many of those fears as we can to get them into the country.

"Again, September is a long way away right now and a lot could change in that time. Are we confident? Yes, quietly confident, but there's a lot of water to pass under the bridge yet."

England will play against West Indies in a three-Test series starting July 8th.