Durham awarded Ashes Test (four years too late)
 

Durham awarded Ashes Test in 2013 | England Cricket News | Cricinfo.com

So far Chester-le-Street and The Oval are confirmed as venues for the 2013 Ashes. It just remains to be seen what other grounds are picked when England are defending the urn in four years time.

If OT doesn't get one, I'm gonna go Scalyesque on Durham for the next four years :ph34r:

Wowza.

Turns out there won't be an OT Test until 2014, doh

A lot of the games haven't been awarded yet.

May as well just chalk up England v Sri Lanka at Cardiff as a defeat now really.

Trent Bridge and Headingly would be my guess (assuming even the ECB won't leave out Lords).

Well, obviously Lord will be inked in for one of the other 3 - so yet again it's mainly down in London.

Like it should always be. We would be playing cricket now.

OT has probably hosted its last Ashes test, at least it was a decent one.

The Rose Bowl will also make its test debut in 2011 hosting Sri Lanka and then again in the 2014 series against India.

Personally I think spreading the tests around the grounds is a good thing. It increases competition between the counties so they actually have to work on the facilities in order to win the right to host test matches. A couple of the 'traditional' grounds (i.e. Old Trafford, possibly Headingly too) have been resting on their laurels for too long and need to step up. Though I am sure that Old Trafford will be allocated a couple of tests out of those left to be announced, not sure they'll get an Ashes one though.

The aim to get better facilities is honorable but its basically turned in to who can get away with charging people the most but still sell the tickets tbh.

Why is the Ashes on in 2016?

Good question

I think every so often it switches round so that other side has 2 1/2 years gap between their home series and the next away Ashes series. Then there's 1 1/2 years between that next Ashes series and the subsequent home series. At present if the home side wins Australia hold the Ashes for 2 1/2 years and England for 1 1/2 years. That could be the reason, or it could be something else entirely.

If Edgbaston had been encouraged to develop a proper drainage system then we would have seen play start around 1ish today.