The England & Wales Cricket Board "opened talks" with Cricket Australia over "how to make the Ashes more competitive" as the tourists enter what ECB Chair Colin Graves admits will be a period of “soul searching” after England's 4-0 series defeat, according to Nick Hoult of the London TELEGRAPH. Graves is "adamant" there will be no "witch hunt" and that coach Trevor Bayliss still retains the full support of his employers. There are "likely to be changes to the team ahead of next summer," rather than for the upcoming tour of New Zealand, and Graves is backing England Managing Dir Andrew Strauss and CEO Tom Harrison to "make the right decisions when they sit down and review the winter." But there "may also be changes to Ashes tours" in the future after Graves said that he is talking to CA CEO James Sutherland about "how to make them a more even contest." Two of the nine Ashes series this century "have been won by the away team and there is an acceptance the series must become a better spectacle if it is to retain its place as the game’s most iconic contest." Talks are "only at a preliminary stage but one step will be to improve the standard of warm up opposition." There is also a realization that "cramming" five Tests into little more than six weeks is "also gruelling for the players." Under the new future tours program, one-day series "will be split into separate tours from Tests." It could "allow for more time to spread out Test matches" (TELEGRAPH, 1/8).
