Wednesday, January 9, 2002 Thank God for the new year. England can forget all about that Ashes thrashing and begin to reap the seeds of recovery sown in Zimbabwe and India. If they play well they can ambush a vastly improved New Zealand side, and should then dispose of India and Sri Lanka at home. Like I said, the Ashes will be a distant memory. A distant memory, that is, for all of 11 months. Because in November, England fly south for the winter for yet another Ashes series – just 14 months after the end of the previous one.

Now I'm all for Anglo-Aussie relations, but aren't John Bull and Waltzing Matilda extending the hand of friendship just a little too often? Tradition demands two Ashes series of five or six Tests every four years, yet it's got to the stage where this isn't good for anyone: the fans, the teams, the game.

Some Australians claim that they will never tire of beating the Poms. Well, they should be: this winter will surely make it eight series wins in a row, breaking England's alltime record of seven, set between 1884 and 1890. The series, in other words, is regurgitating the one-sided contests of more than a century ago. Tradition is in danger of choking on its own vomit.

Australia must be getting bored, but it's England who suffer more. Every time they stagger back to their feet, they are caught by the latest wallaby knock-out punch. It's swift, painful, and occurs with indecent haste. In the decade from May 1990, England played 104 Tests, and 27 of them – more than a quarter – were against the oldest enemy. Of those, they won five and lost 16. Of the five they won, only one - Edgbaston 1997 – came when the Ashes were at stake. The new millennium merely confirmed the old order. England began by winning four series in a row and were on course for a fifth when the Aussies rolled into town. As if tormented by their presence, England duly collapsed on the final afternoon of the Old Trafford Test against Pakistan, and an irreversible slide began that culminated in that 4-1 hammering. Recoveries only ever last as long as the next Ashes series.

But this now-ritual masochism has wider repercussions. Asian countries suspect a white, old-guard conspiracy to shut them out, and fester with resentment. And the ECB, so worried about putting bums on seats, keep the newer nations, who represent easy, average-friendly pickings even for England, at arm's length. Sri Lanka's three-Test series in England this year will be their first, more than five years after they were crowned world champions. Bangladesh will have to wait until December 2003 before England even bother to give them a game. In the 1990s, almost two-thirds of England's 104 Tests were against one-third of the teams: Australia, West Indies or South Africa. No wonder only Graham Thorpe averages 40.

The solution will bring a tear to the eye of the old school: Ashes series should be shortened until England show they can compete. Ok, so England did change the 2001 series from the usual six home Tests to five, but that's still too many. Three is too few for such a historically resonant fixture, so why not four, which works very nicely when West Indies host Australia? This new four-Test series should take place twice every five years, not every four, so that England can give their full attention to other teams (in the 1990s they played just 22 out of 104 Tests against India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh put together).

It would also give long-suffering England fans more hope. After all, if a four-Test Ashes had been in operation in 1997, we would have gone to the final game at 1-1: a genuine contest. Now there's a thought. The champagne might even be off ice for longer than it takes to say "A return flight to Sydney".

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com. His English Angle appears here on Wednesdays.

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