Jonathan Trott believes the historical Ashes rivalry betweenEngland and Australia could lose significance if the two teams continue to playeach other often. England will host Australia for five ODIs across four weeksahead of this summer's Ashes series, and Trott, keeping in mind the alreadycrammed international calendar, has expressed concern that fans could get sickof too much cricket.
"England-Australia is a special tradition and rivalry,and it definitely needs looking after. It mustn't be overplayed or overdone andwe all have to be careful about that," said the No. 3 batsman in the LondonEvening Standard."It could be too much, I think so. You want it to bespecial. England used to play Australia at home every four years, it was in thebooks and people had years to look forward to it. Now, they were here two yearsago, they're here now and they're here again next summer.
"You don't want people to think: 'I'm not going thisyear because I know they're here next year'. Or next year, people not coming tothe games because they saw England-Australia in 2012."
The 2012 Ashes will be played in July and August, and thenAustralia will host England for a return series starting November 2013. Trottwas of the opinion that the paying public could see that cricket'sadministrators were looking to cash in financially through a surfeit ofEngland-Australia fixtures.
"We've seen what happened with the domestic Twenty20competition, when they started throwing in tons of games [there were 16 in thefirst round in 2010 and 2011], and there was a bit of overkill. It was aboutright when there were only eight matches in the first round," he said."People might wonder what the point is, or they might think it's toomonotonous. I know this series is happening because there's a triangular seriesin Australia before the 2015 World Cup, to get used to the conditions. It showsthe importance the ECB place on the 2015 World Cup, but it's perhaps a bitstrange we're playing each other this often."
Australia will begin their limited-overs tour with the firstof five ODIs at Lord's on June 29.