England players yet to sign central contracts

England cricketers risk boarding the plane to Australia for the Ashes in October with the distraction of not having signed their central contracts.

There had been high hopes that a meeting at Lord's between the managing director of England cricket, Hugh Morris, and the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, Angus Porter, would lead to an accord being struck.

However, despite talk of "very good progress" in the negotiations, it is understood that both parties have decided to push back sign-off until October. "We are reasonably close but there are some more details that need to be worked through," Porter told Digger.

One reason for the delay is the attempt to broker a three-year contract template in an effort to avoid the perennial negotiations. Yet that has been the ambition for some time and there may be suspicions of a similar breakdown in talks in yesterday's meeting since it did not translate into final contracts being submitted for approval.

"We're now working on contracts for October when they come due..." he said.